allowed. Visitors may also tour the museum from 9:30 am to 4 pm every day except official holidays. History Barksdale Field was named in honor of 2nd Lieutenant Eugene Hoy Barksdale (1895–1926) on 2 February 1933. Lieutenant Barksdale received his wings in Great Britain in 1918 and flew with the British Royal Flying Corps during World War I. Barksdale died on 11 August 1926, over McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio, when testing a Douglas O-2 observation airplane for spin characteristics. He did not recover from a flat spin, and while parachuting out of the plane his parachute was caught in the wing's brace wires, causing Barksdale to fall to his death. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. The name of the airfield was changed to Barksdale Air Force Base on 13 February 1948, concurrent with the establishment of the United States Air Force as a separate military branch. Airships were still in use when field construction began, so Hangars One and Two were built large enough to accommodate them. No airships were ever assigned, but each hangar was large enough to accommodate two Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bombers wingtip to wingtip, which proved invaluable for Big Belly and Pacer Plank modifications managed by Boeing's Wichita plant between 1965 and 1973. Half of the B-52Fs were deployed from Barksdale, but never returned as they were replaced by B-52Gs after the Vietnam War. Origins As early as 1924, the citizens of Shreveport became interested in hosting a military flying field. In 1926, Shreveport citizens learned that the 3rd Attack Wing stationed at Fort Crockett, Texas, would be enlarged by 500 percent and would require at least to support aerial gunnery and a bombing range. The efforts to procure the government's commitment to build the facility in the Shreveport metropolitan area were spearheaded by a committee co-chaired by local civic leaders Andrew Querbes and John D. Ewing, beginning in 1927. It took a great deal of correspondence between the interested parties and the original proposal was rejected. However, in February 1928, a young crop duster, a U.S. Army Air Corps captain named Harold Ross Harris, was hired to fly over the local area in order to find a suitable site for the airfield. Captain Harris selected what he felt was an adequate location for a military airfield. It was a sprawling section of cotton plantation near Bossier City. The