Ward Island
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Originally called Island 'A', this 258 acre peninsula was later named for land developer John C. Ward who obtained the island in 1892. Plans to develop the island into an exclusive resort community were crushed by a depression in 1893, but Ward Island became a popular hunting and fishing site. W.E. James and Herman Anderson purchased the land in 1909. Tourist businesses remained here until the 1940s. During World War II, Ward Island was acquired by the U.S. Navy for the establishment of a radar station and training base. Commissioned in July 1942, the base provided advanced training to Navy, Marine, Coast Guard and Royal Canadian Air Force personnel. In 1943 the facility was renamed Naval Air Technical Training Center and included 67 main buildings such as barracks, classrooms, and administration building, mess hall, library, and chapel. For more than three years this base operated as the Navy's only aviation electronic training school, graduating more than 10,000 technicians. Declared surplus by the Navy, the base was closed in October 1947. That year it became the site of the University of Corpus Christi, which later developed into Texas A & M University-Corpus Christi. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for developer John C. Ward, who acquired the 258-acre peninsula in 1892, Ward Island saw its resort dreams dashed by the 1893 depression and became instead a popular hunting and fishing ground. In 1942 the Navy turned it into an electronics and radar training base—the service's only such school—graduating more than 10,000 technicians before the site became the University of Corpus Christi and, eventually, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi.
Why it matters
The peninsula's journey from failed resort to wartime radar school to public university mirrors the modernization of the Texas coast.
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Related people
- · John C. Ward
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Naval Air Station Corpus Christi
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Commissioned in March 1941 as the nation prepared for war, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi grew into one of the country's great flight schools, graduating some 35,000 aviators and earning the nickname 'the University of the Air.' Its trainees included future president George H. W. Bush and astronaut-senator John Glenn, while hundreds of WAVES served as instructors, controllers, and technicians across its many auxiliary fields.
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Schooling on the Flour Bluff peninsula began in 1892, but it was oil, gas, ranching, and the Navy that made it a district. After the 1916 hurricane, students themselves helped rebuild the school farther inland; when the oil boom and then World War II brought new families and the Naval Air Station, the district built a junior-senior high and a "Laboratory of Industry" that trained boys for work at the naval plant. Voting for independence after the war, Flour Bluff ISD under Superintendent Ernest J. Wranosky pushed to "advance and equalize" opportunity for every student.
Aransas County Airport
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201st Fighter Squadron, Mexican Expeditionary Air Force (The Aztec Eagles)
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