Years ago when I lived on Possum Kingdom Lake and worked at the Mineral Wells Index, I took a drive down by the old military base, Fort Wolters, to scope it out.
Now, I confess to having endless curiosity when confronted with abandoned buildings, ghost towns or historic sites. My fascination probably has a lot to do with growing up around a historian.
It was a new job and I wanted to get to know the lay of the land, so to speak. By time I arrived in 1996, the base had been abandoned, although part of it was incorporated into a National Guard outpost. Yet for the most part, Fort Wolters was mile after mile of unused buildings decaying in the relentless Texas sun. While interesting, it was a bit sad to see the once-proud base in such a state of disrepair.
Fort Wolters had a noble past in a region that boasts some of the most interesting history Texas has to offer. From the 1920s until after World War II, the base, then known as Camp Wolters, was the largest infantry training center in the U.S., but was deactivated until 1956, when it was converted into an helicopter training center under the direction of the Air Force and dubbed a fort. It was where the majority of Vietnam chopper pilots would train.
But as America eased away from the Vietnam War, Fort Wolters was deactivated again in 1973. And there it seemingly stood still in time until I drove up to gawk at it that day. I have to confess, it was a shocking sight to see. The government had just completed a brand new state-of-the-art hospital just one year before it decommissioned the base. Essentially, they just locked up the building — equipment and everything — and let it decay for the next quarter century.
But the hospital, flanked by numerous old hangers, etc., was just the beginning. While cruising through old base, I saw a glimpse of something over a fence. Curious, I parked and took a peek. I could not have prepared myself for what I saw — street after street of abandoned homes complete with infrastructure. It was as if all the families that had once called this place home mysteriously disappeared overnight. It had a post-apocalyptic feel — front doors stood wide open, windows were broken and weeds forced fissures in the roads and sidewalks. In short, perfectly good homes were left to rot until the place more resembled a superfund site, rather than a neighborhood.
My fascination turned to shock at the sight of such waste. Why didn’t the government clean up after itself? As a taxpayer, I was incensed. Wouldn’t it have been better to sell these homes under market value and keep them on tax rolls — rather than letting it all deteriorate into oblivion? Goodness, it would have been preferable to sell it all for scrap. Now it would cost millions to clean it all up. It was particularly poignant at the time because, with the Cold War over, the government was closing down numerous military bases.
All these years later, I still wish I had a moral to this story, rather than the dazed and confused reaction of an horrified observer.