Visit to the Texas National Guard Museum: Camp Mabry, Austin, Texas
My wife and I were in Austin, Texas visiting my daughter and her husband today and I had some free time while the ladies were off shopping. I decided I wanted to visit the Texas National Guard Museum which is located at Camp Mabry, the headquarters for the Texas National Guard, that is located near downtown Austin. I have sped past Camp Mabry on the freeway probably 1000 times, but had never stopped in. I was very impressed with the museum, which is located in a huge warehouse that was built in the late 1800s/early 1900s. The history displayed here begins in the 1830s (Texas independence from Mexico), then goes through the various wars that the soldiers of Texas and Texas National Guard have participated in. There are even displays of the Texas Navy, when Texas was a republic and not a state, as well as the US Civil War. Since this is a museum for the various types of units of the Texas National Guard, you get to see artifacts from infantry, navy, armor, and aircraft. The museum has a tremendous number of immaculately restored weapons, vehicles, uniforms, and so on. They also have a bunch of armor that I had not seen in other museums, including US weapons, German WW1 & WW2 weapons, and an Iraqi MTLB. They have several dioramas that have some really great modeling involved. It was a little cool here (55 degrees)(don't laugh), but I spent a lot of time outside looking at the armor on display there. I took about 200 pictures on my new iPhone (Christmas present), and I thought some of you might find some of them interesting. I hope everyone has a great New Year!
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- 1. This diorama was about 10 x 5 feet and was well-detailed. 1/35 scale.
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- 1. Detail from a huge diorama of the D-Day landings. 1/35 scale.
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- 1. 1/35 scale diorama of the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. Another really large diorama.
George @gblair, Nice post! Don't get to Austin that much anymore, I prefer the cities a little more south of 'Weird" ;-). Still a great place to visit. I'll have to remember to stop by this place next time I'm in the Area.
The F-16 from the 147th put a smile on my face. They were stationed down here at Ellington Field, KEFD before they changed roles. The 147th is now a 'Reconnaissance' wing flying Predators. We still have National Guard F-16's, but they are from Oklahoma. Probably still flown by Texans, but it's not quite the same.
Thanks for the info, James (@jamesb). With all the traffic and creative driving in Austin, I prefer to visit rather than live there. I live just north of San Antonio, but we travel to Austin to visit my daughter & her husband 3 or 4 times a month. When I was flying T-37s at Randolph, I enjoyed taking my students on cross-country trips to Ellington. Back then, there were Guard F-4s to see, as well as some NASA T-38s. I was stationed in New Jersey when the F-16s started to show up at Ellington. Went to the Lone Star Flight Museum in Houston, a few months ago...very cool.
North of San Antonio, NICE!. Love that part of the State. I grew up down here and still remember when KEFD was an Air Force Base. Dad would take me out an see the Delta Darts on weekends.
Next time you get down to Houston, look me up. As soon as we get the SB2C Helldiver's engine back on, she will return to Ellington and be parked inside LSFM for the first few months before Airshow season starts up. I'll probably post some photos here once she returns.
Here's a few shots from KEFD. First one shows where he NASA Jets are stored. Second one shows where the Ready F-16s are parked. They were out already on that morning.
2 attached images. Click to enlarge.
1. NASA Parking
2. Guppy Hangar
1. Ready Hangars
2. Extra F-16 Hangars
Thanks! It looks like the photos were taken from a Helldiver. Great photos.
First one was from a small Whirlybird, a Schweizer S300C. In fact my profile photo is a selfie from inside that bird. I occasional rent helicopters for industrial photo shoots. The second one is taken from the back seat of the Helldiver.
Good collection of pic's there George, happy new year !
Great photos. We've been to Camp Mabry before but never to the museum. REALLY need to check it out the next time we are there.
Looks like a great museum.