Garden City Army Airfield was a World War II training base of the United States Army Air Forces Central Flying Training Command (CFTC). It is currently the city-owned Garden City Regional Airport.
History
The Garden City, Kansas, Chamber of Commerce did most of the effective work in getting an airfield established in their area. At first, all of its energies were concentrated on acquiring one of the RAF training fields which were to be established in the United States during 1941–1942. In June 1941, the Chamber of Commerce sent representatives with an elaborate booklet to the War Department, setting forth the advantages of locating a flying school in Finney County, Kansas, buttressed by photographs of the area, and containing information on water and natural gas resources, and weather conditions.
Perhaps the major obstacle to locating a training base in Kansas was the decision of the AAF Gulf Coast Training Center not to locate primary or basic training bases north of the Kansas–Oklahoma border because of poor flying weather compared to Oklahoma and Texas. To combat this decision, the Kansas delegation prepared detailed weather statistics which showed that the south portion of Kansas has as many clear and partly cloudy days as San Antonio, Texas. Over a period of 18 months a great amount of data was filed with the War Department. The cumulative effect of this information, plus the later government surveys which were largely in agreement, was in large part responsible for a reversal by the War Department of the decision of the Gulf Coast Training Command.
The first knowledge of a firm intention to construct a base in the Garden City area came to the local civic leaders on 8 April 1942, with a telegram from Washington announcing the imminent arrival of a board of officers to choose a site for the base. Three days later, the board of officers arrived and, under the guidance of the aviation committee of the Garden City Chamber of Commerce, a site was chosen 12 miles east of Garden City on US Highway 50 South. On 16 June 1942, surveying crews began work at the site outlining runways and staking buildings. When the crews arrived, the area of the projected base was a ripe wheat field. Consequently, the first days were a sort of combined operation, which began with the farmers threshing a strip down the proposed runways to enable surveyors to start. Farming and surveying proceeded simultaneously.
The construction program at Garden City was cut off before it really got under way by the orders of Headquarters, Army Air Forces, in June 1942, stopping work on nine of the 14 proposed British Operational Training Units. This change wiped out the entire western Kansas project of British bases, including Garden City, Dodge City, Pratt, and Liberal. From the middle of June until the latter part of July 1942, the Garden City officials did not know what kind of installation would be located in their community, if any. But, by 27 July, it was definitely understood that Garden City was to have a basic flying training school. By the middle of July, the Division Engineers had received a set of plans for the construction of the new type of base. The engineers were forced to remove every stake that had been driven for the former project and start anew. Contracts were let for construction before all the new stakes had been set out.
Construction
The main base of the Garden City Army Airfield consisted of 1,584.66 acres, approximately 489 acres of which was re- served for the building area. The base was located on an irregular plot of high ground adjacent to the Arkansas River. The field extended one and one-half miles north and south and one and eight-tenths miles east and west along U.S. Route 50 South in Finney county, about 11 miles southeast of Garden City and 42 miles west northwest of Dodge City. The land was acquired by judgments of Declaration of Taking in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas, Second Division.
Some 66 barracks, with a total capacity of 2,224 persons, were built for enlisted personnel, while 520 cadets could be accommodated in 26 barracks. Officers' quarters consisted of 17 buildings, with a total capacity of 272. Two buildings were provided for nurses' living quarters and mess hall. Total housing capacity for all personnel was 3,219. The base hospital was constructed with five wards, with 151 beds.