Most Benbrook residents know Mercedes Street as a familiar road through town. Some may have even spotted it while watching the television series Landman. But more than a century ago, the area played a surprising role in World War I aviation history.
In 1917, the Royal Flying Corps selected Fort Worth as a training hub for American and Canadian pilots. One of the training sites, Benbrook Field, stood where portions of today’s Lakeside subdivision are located.
At the time, the airfield featured dozens of hangars and runways stretching across land that looked very different from the neighborhoods residents know today. Benbrook Lake had not yet been created.
Among the pilots stationed there was Vernon Castle, a world-famous dancer credited with helping introduce the tango to America.
After enlisting in the military, Castle became an aviation instructor and was killed on February 15, 1918, when he reportedly swerved his aircraft to avoid striking a student pilot. His funeral drew thousands of mourners in downtown Fort Worth, and his legacy remains part of Benbrook’s history through a memorial and a street bearing his name.
Benbrook Field closed in 1919. The hangars disappeared, the land became farmland, and eventually homes and streets replaced the runways.
Today, traces of that history remain. Residents can visit the Texas Historical Commission marker at 812 Mercedes Street, a reminder that beneath a quiet Benbrook neighborhood lies a chapter of Texas history many have never heard of.
Sometimes the most remarkable stories are hiding in places we drive past every day.
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