Wings over Waco
By Terri Jo Ryan
Tribune-Herald staff writer
Little more than a decade after the Wright Brothers’ flight over the windswept cliffs of Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, N.C., daring aviators were making regular excursions into the skies over Waco.
A military flying school in an area southwest of town once regarded as remote, near 41st Street (New Road) and Bosque Boulevard, opened a few months after the United States entered World War I in April 1917.
Rich Field was named in honor of Lt. Perry C. Rich, killed when his Wright Model C aircraft plunged into Manila Bay on Nov. 14, 1913. Several other Texas training fields, such as Call in Wichita Falls and Kelly in San Antonio, also were named for early airmen who lost their lives in training accidents that same year.
According to various records, from 340 to 410 cadets were trained at Rich Field between August 1917 and the war’s end, using an airplane that cost Uncle Sam $5,465 (more than $83,000 in today’s dollars) — the bi-wing Curtiss JN-4Ds, better known as Jennys.
Rich Field trained men for the 331st Aero Squadron and 374th Aero Squadron, outfits that saw duty in France.
After WWI ended in November 1918, Rich Field became a temporary storage depot for military surplus items.
Although the field was soon abandoned, shabby relics of some World War I-era buildings remained standing through the late 1950s.
The Heart O’ Texas Fairgrounds and Coliseum occupy part of the former base’s territory. A high school was constructed on part of the site in the late 1950s and named Richfield High School, in honor of the former military base. In 1986, that high school was consolidated into Waco High School.
Sources: Mike Cox, TexasEscapes.com; Col. C. R. Glasebrook, American Aviators in the Great War 1914-1918; Handbook of Texas Online; TheAerodrome.com
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