http://www.globalair.com/airport/airportinfo~/aptcode=92FL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlstrom_Field

Airport ID: 92FL

Long:     081-50-59.3000W, -81.8050995
Lat:    27-07-14.1900N,  27.124305

Florida was selected for military flight training in 1917 because it had the second best weather among the states for flyable weather. Only Arizona had slightly more flyable days and Texas came in third.

Near Arcadia, Carlstrom Field and Dorr Field were principal aviation training stations for the Army. At Dorr Field fourteen hangars were constructed and training was done in Curtiss JN-4D (Jenny) airplanes as well as some rotary engine craft produced by the Glenn Martin company. Army airfields were named after military aviation heroes of the day, and Carlstrom Field was named after First Lieutenant Victor Carlstrom who had made many altitude and distance records and died in a training flight.  Carlstrom Field was the principal Army Air Corps Flying School until 1923 when training was moved to San Antonio, Texas.

In March of 1942 Carlstrom Field in Arcadia was reopened for Army flight training and was operated by Embry-Riddle, a civilian contractor. Over 8000 cadets were trained there. Barracks and buildings were designed with a Colonial style architecture and six hangers were set on a curved flight line and the entire area was encircled by a fifty-foot wide roadway. After the war, the State of Florida bought the field and in 1947 converted the site into the G. Pierce Wood Memorial Hospital, a mental hospital named after a north Florida legislator who lived in Arcadia. It now serves as the Desoto County Juvenile Detention facility.  Many of the original buildings still stand, and the circular drive can easily by seen by pilots flying overhead today.

Look for some present day pictures in our photo gallery.