History of Camp Mabry: A Century of Military Heritage in Austin, Texas

Camp Mabry, in west Austin, was established in the early 1890s as a summer encampment of the Texas Volunteer Guard, a forerunner of the Texas National Guard. In 1891 a citizens' committee in Austin began looking for a place for the volunteer guard to train. In 1892 they chose a ninety-acre site three miles northwest of the Capitol. The guardsmen chose to name the new camp in honor of Woodford Haywood Mabry, adjutant general of Texas from January 1891 to May 1898. Upon securing the land, the guard immediately began clearing the landscape and constructing a variety of temporary structures for training purposes, including a dining hall and cooking sheds. Water pipes were laid through the site and connected to the city’s sewer system. Guardsmen built a dam at the creek on the west side of the camp and created a bathing pool. To raise funds to purchase additional land, the guard enacted large exhibition “sham battles” on the large parade ground on the east side of the camp. A large grandstand for paying spectators was constructed; it burned down in 1902 and was rebuilt the same year (it no longer stands). Camp Mabry was used as a mobilization area during the Spanish-American War; seven infantry companies and eight cavalry regiments mustered there in the spring of 1898. During the war, General Mabry became ill and died while in Cuba.

In 1909 the size of the camp was greatly increased by the addition of 200 acres that the federal government purchased for the state for use in training the national guard. Other gifts brought the size of the encampment to 400 acres by 1911. The state arsenal building was built there in 1915, and all military stores were moved from the state Capitol to the new facility. The Great Northern Railway, whose tracks lay to the east of the camp, had already extended a spur to this location.

During World War I the United States Army used the camp as a training site and over a six-week period built more than a dozen large barracks, administration buildings, workshops, and other support buildings. For about six months in 1918, through an agreement with the War Department and the University of Texas, Camp Mabry became home to the School of Automobile Mechanics (S.A.M.), which trained approximately 6,000 civilian men in the repair of vehicles and in other trades. Because the school was a collaboration with the University of Texas, the buildings’ designs were overseen by UT resident architect George Endress.

Buildings constructed to house the school included six two-story brick barracks; four of these remain and are now known as Buildings 10, 11, 14, and 15, and two were destroyed in a fire in 1929. In the 2020s Building 1, near the camp’s historic main entrance, is still in use as the main administrative building, and Building 6, originally the dining hall, is home to the Texas Military Forces Museum. Building 6 was built by the Austin contractor Johnson and Shaffer using local brick. An identical dining hall was built at Penn Field in South Austin for the School for Radio Operators. That building still stood in 2023, although it has been modified. Brick was more readily available than wood (or carpenters), so only a few wood buildings were constructed. These included Building 45 (which was immediately put to use as an infirmary during the 1918–19 influenza pandemic) and several large workshop buildings; only one of these remained in 2023. By 1919 the S.A.M. was no longer in operation, though the buildings remained.

In 1923, as airmail was becoming a new reality, an airfield was incorporated into the parade ground in the hope that Austin would become a hub for airmail routes. A new municipal airfield was developed around the same time on the east side of town, and Camp Mabry did not ultimately become a significant hub for airmail, but its airfield still saw decades of light use. Pilots sometimes used Camp Mabry as a base for commercial pleasure flights. Many air shows (or “air circuses”) were held at Camp Mabry during the 1920s, including one event wherein a leading female aviator and sharpshooter named Grace McClellan climbed onto the wing of her airborne airplane and shot down balloons released by a second airplane. Expositions and horse races were also held at Camp Mabry in the 1920s. The barracks were used as exposition halls, and temporary barns were constructed on the parade ground for livestock shows. Polo matches were held into the 1950s. For the 1923 Texas State Exposition, held at Camp Mabry, an enormous firecracker—at the time, the world’s largest on record at ninety feet long and featuring “100,000 smaller crackers of various sizes and flares and pinwheels of all colors”—was brought from China and exploded before an enthusiastic crowd.

In 1935 a Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed the Work Projects Administration in 1939) project at Camp Mabry was approved but then suspended due to lack of funding. Then, in 1936, Texas was allotted $146,596.03 for the general repair and restoration of buildings, grounds, roads, and other “permanent installations” at Camp Mabry. From 1936 to 1938 WPA workers constructed a variety of stone structures at Camp Mabry in a style known as “C.C.C. Rustic,” after the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Among other improvements, WPA workers built low stone walls and a guard post at the camp’s main entrance on West 35th Street, and around Buildings 10 and 11, as well as drainage channels adjacent to the buildings and a covered walkway between them. The walls feature wrought-iron gates and lanterns, and at the buildings, wire fencing atop the walls. Along the creek which runs through the western part of Camp Mabry, WPA workers replaced the original 1892 brick dam with a limestone dam and built three arched stone bridges.  

When the Texas National Guard was called into federal service during World War II, Camp Mabry served as headquarters for the Texas Defense Guard (see TEXAS STATE GUARD), the remaining state militia. The WPA provided funds and labor for the construction of a row of ten motor storage buildings on the north side of the parade ground, as well as a paint shop and a general shop. Fort Worth architect Wyatt C. Hedrick designed the buildings; the Ransdell Construction Company and WPA workers built them. Motor storage buildings now known as Buildings 33 through 39 were built in 1941, and Buildings 21, 26, 30, 31, and 32 were built in 1942. The federal government (War Department) took control of Buildings 30–36 shortly after their completion.

During World War II Camp Mabry continued to be a critical manufacturing and supply point within Texas. Camp Mabry was home to the 111th Observation Squadron, the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division, the Fifty-sixth Cavalry, 111th Quartermaster Corps, the Texas Defense Guard, the Second Battalion of the 131st Field Artillery, and the Eighth Service Command. The Eighth Service Command operated the Mabry Ordnance Shops, a ground-breaking (and very successful) training school for hundreds of disabled veterans and local civilians (including eighty-two “ex-housewives”). The shops were housed in the Motor Storage Buildings and led by Maj. James Dewberry. Participants learned to build and repair engine parts for tanks, trucks, and other non-military vehicles, in preparation for civilian jobs. The shops featured “the first conveyor system in any of the service command base shops.” Workers in the shops developed innovative prosthetic devices for disabled mechanics, welders, and other skilled laborers. The program also played a crucial role in supplying Allied forces with materiel during the battle of the Bulge.

Camp Mabry served as a training ground for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Texas Rangers, as well as the national guard, between 1935 and 1953 (and had served as a storage facility for the Texas Highway Department [see TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION] since 1924). The DPS occupied Buildings 10 and 11 and Building 6. In 1942 the DPS and the American Legion provided instruction for female mechanics (known as the State Women’s Corps) and for the “War Reserve Police” in Building 6. The DPS used Building 6 to store and repair vehicles and as a radio repair shop. The DPS operated their first fixed radio station, the 400-watt KTXA, in a small building (now gone) located behind Building 6, between 1939 and 1942. After the DPS departed for a new facility near downtown, Building 6 was used chiefly as a drill hall; it has also since contained a recruiting office, quarters for base personnel, and the post library.

The state adjutant general's office was moved to Camp Mabry in 1954, and the Texas National Guard State Officer Candidate School was established there in 1959. In 1969 U. S. Representative Jake Pickle helped secure funding for the construction of several new buildings at Camp Mabry, including Building 67, a parachute maintenance and repair facility. Building 67 served the basic airborne school, or “jump school,” of the Texas Army National Guard’s Seventy-first Airborne Infantry Brigade, which operated through the mid-1970s. In 1976 the school graduated Private First Class Carrie A. Noble, the first woman outside the active-duty U. S. Army to complete military jump training. PFC Noble completed the course in order to serve as an airborne medic. At the time it was built, Building 67 was considered the “most modern and well-equipped” facility of its kind (and one of only three) in the nation. It continues to serve as a facility for inspecting, packing, repairing, and cleaning parachutes.

The Mopac Expressway was constructed along the east side of Camp Mabry between 1969 and 1975. Construction of the southbound lanes required the removal of a narrow strip of the eastern edge of the camp, including a portion of the original 1915 arsenal. A historical marker acknowledging the contribution of Camp Mabry was given by the Texas Historical Commission in 1968. A chapel was built at Camp Mabry in 1976. Because no state or federal funds may be used for the construction of a chapel, a committee of supporters raised funds from private donors, including a grant from the Moody Foundation as a “gift to the nation,” for its Bicentennial.

In the mid-1980s the size of the Camp Mabry site was just over 375 acres, and the building space was 700,000 square feet. The various offices at Camp Mabry employed 800 people. The Texas National Guard Academy opened at Camp Mabry in June 1984. Camp Mabry observed its 100th anniversary on Texas Armed Forces Day in May 1992. In addition to battle reenactments and displays, the celebration included an informal opening of the Texas Military Forces Museum, which was completed later that year.

In 1996 the Camp Mabry Historic District was listed on the National Register for Historic Places, with thirty historic buildings and numerous structures (such as those built by the WPA) identified as contributing to the district. It was designated a Texas State Antiquities Landmark the following year. As of 2023 located on the post are the headquarters of the Texas Air National Guard, the Texas State Guard, the United States Property and Fiscal Office, the Texas National Guard Armory Board, the Headquarters Armory of the Forty-ninth Armored Division, a clinic, a parachute packing and storage facility, and numerous supply and warehouse facilities.