From training field to industrial park: Strother Field
The airport between Winfield and Arkansas City trained World War II pilots before it became the two cities' shared industrial park.
By Garrett Pruitt
Drive the six miles southwest of Winfield toward Arkansas City and you pass Strother Field, owned jointly by the two cities.
The cities were already building an airport there in April 1942 when the Army Air Forces said it needed a training field. Strother Army Airfield was rushed to completion, and the first class of cadets was due to arrive on Dec. 14, 1942, to train in Vultee BT-13 Valiant planes.
Military flying ended in October 1945, and the field was turned over for civilian use. In the early 1950s it became the shared municipal airport and industrial park for Winfield and Arkansas City, and that is what it remains today: Strother Field and Industrial Park.
Some of the wartime base is still there, including the runways, two hangars, two Link trainer buildings and a tetrahedron wind indicator, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.