In my case, I was completely unaware of the significance this airfield has had in the history of Tallahassee and specifically, Tallahassee Community College. The Dale Mabry Airfield started out just as a field opened by the city of Tallahassee in November 1929.
This airfield was created and named after an army pilot named Dale Mabry. Dale was an army pilot in World War I, a native to Tallahassee and a captain. I’m not too sure of other achievements Dale Mabry is famed for, it is kind of hard to find different information for him than what is stated above. Most of my sources talk about the airfield in general. I researched Dale Mabry Airfield and this is one website I used: http://www.floridamemory.com/photographiccollection/photo_exhibits/dale-mabry/
Mr Dale Mabry was killed in 1922 in a huge crash in Virginia. He died at the age of thirty along with thirty three other men in a crash involving the first hydrogen-filled dirigible. This was said to be the worst crash throughout this time period because it killed many men and only twelve men actually survived this crash. I’m not too sure why an airfield was named after Dale of all people because if it was due to the crash, I would like to know how he differs from the thirty three other men who passed away that day. The Dale Mabry field that was created by the city of Tallahassee became an U.S. Army base on January 24th in 1941.With this field now an army base, it housed all of the enlisted men and women. Over time, this base grew from 530 acres of land to 1,720 acres of land. The war end in 1945 which left veterans now wanting to go back to school. This caused a surplus of students with limited education opportunities, therefore more colleges opened. One school in particular was called Florida State College of Women. This is one of the few schools that bought land from the Dale Mabry Airfield. It has come to my attention that we sometimes have military planes fly over the campus of Tallahassee Community College.
I did not know that this airfield was as close as it was to my college until this project was assigned. I am now extremely intrigued in finding rumored asphalt from the Dale Mabry runway that is still visible in certain spots throughout our TCC campus.
