Val Verde County showcases military memorials, aviation history in Del Rio

Del Rio’s military memory is packed into a surprisingly small map, and that density gives Val Verde County families, veterans and school groups a place to see local service as a living chain rather than a single monument. At the Civic Center, three memorials honor T-33 crews, county servicemen across wars and those wounded in combat, while nearby stops tie that story to Laughlin Air Force Base, World War II, the borderlands and modern conflict.

Start at the Civic Center grounds

The clearest place to begin is the Del Rio Civic Center grounds, where the Val Verde County Historical Commission’s military-and-veteran guide identifies three memorials in one stop. The T-33A Memorial honors everyone who flew and maintained T-33 aircraft and was dedicated in 1965. The Monument Dedicated to the Servicemen of Del Rio and Val Verde County, dedicated in 1983, carries names stretching from World War I through Iraq and Afghanistan, while the Purple Heart Memorial recognizes men and women wounded in war and includes names listed on the monument.

That clustering matters because it turns remembrance into a public lesson. A student walking the grounds can move from the Korean War-era T-33 to county service in the world wars, Vietnam-era conflicts, Iraq and Afghanistan without leaving downtown Del Rio. For veterans and military families, the site also makes visible something that is easy to miss in everyday life: service from one generation to the next has been marked here for decades, in stone and names, not just in ceremony.

Follow the aviation story to South Main Street

A short drive or walk leads to the Laughlin Heritage Foundation Museum at 309 S. Main St., directly across from the Val Verde County courthouse. The U.S. Air Force says the museum tells the story of Laughlin Air Force Base from the base’s founding in 1943, and Texas Time Travel describes it as an archive of artifacts and information from Laughlin AFB and the early years of aviation in Val Verde County.

That makes the museum the best place to connect the memorials downtown with the larger military aviation story that shaped the county. Laughlin Army Air Field opened in 1942 east of Del Rio because the Army needed to train pilots quickly, and the open land and year-round weather made the area almost ideal for flight training. During World War II, the base trained B-26 crews; after it reopened under the Air Training Command in April 1952, it used aircraft including the F-80 Shooting Star, F-84 Thunderjet and T-33. The museum places those aircraft and that training mission back into the county’s own geography.

Remember the people, not just the planes

The memorial trail becomes more personal at the San Felipe Exes Museum, where a monument honors Ramon G. Gutierrez, remembered there as El Sancudo and described as Del Rio’s most decorated serviceman. Gutierrez served in Company E, 141st Infantry during World War II and was awarded two Silver Stars, three Purple Hearts and the Soviet Order of the Patriotic War 2nd Class.

That record gives the stop unusual weight. It is one thing to see a name on a monument; it is another to encounter a local serviceman whose military career reached from the European theater to Soviet recognition after the war. For Del Rio, Gutierrez’s story keeps the county’s war memory grounded in a specific family and a specific neighborhood, not just in a distant battlefield history.

Another deeply local stop sits at the U.S. Post Office on Bedell Avenue, where a memorial honors Airman 1st Class Raymond Losano, born in Del Rio on April 20, 1979, and killed in Afghanistan on April 25, 2003. The Air Force says Losano served as a tactical air control party airman with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, was killed in a firefight while helping coordinate close air support, and was one of the first tactical control Airmen killed in combat since the Korean War. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Losano’s memorial links Del Rio directly to the Afghanistan War in a way that is immediate and painful for local families who watched that conflict unfold on television and then saw its cost come home. It also broadens the county’s remembrance beyond older wars, showing that the military story here did not stop with the Cold War or the airbase’s early decades.

A namesake at Westlawn Cemetery

Westlawn Cemetery holds another important marker: the cenotaph for Lt. Jack Thomas Laughlin, the namesake of Laughlin Air Force Base. Born in Del Rio on September 17, 1914, Laughlin graduated from Del Rio High School, earned a degree from the University of Texas, joined the Army Air Corps in 1940 and received his pilot’s wings in Stockton, California, in 1941.

His memorial gives the base a hometown face. Before Laughlin became a military installation known across the country, it was already tied to a Del Rio family and a Del Rio education. The cenotaph helps explain why the base’s name still carries local meaning for residents who may drive past it every day without knowing the man behind it.

See the wider county map

The commission’s broader marker pages stretch the story well beyond downtown Del Rio. Camp Del Rio was established on September 6, 1876 as an outpost of Fort Clark, and Camp Michie, formerly Camp Del Rio, was used in the 1910s to secure the U.S.-Mexico border during the Mexican Revolution. Major Rudolf Anderson Jr., the only American airman shot down during the Cuban Missile Crisis, is also memorialized locally, and the Medal of Honor Fight near the Pecos River is tied to Black Seminole scouts and April 1875.

That reach is part of what makes Val Verde County’s memorial landscape unusual. It is not a single era frozen in bronze. It is a layered record of frontier defense, border security, World War II aviation, Cold War danger and recent wars, all mapped into one county.

A usable remembrance route

A practical way to move through the county is to start in downtown Del Rio and work outward. The Civic Center grounds give the fastest introduction to the county’s memorial core. From there, South Main Street and the courthouse area place the Laughlin Heritage Foundation Museum in easy reach, followed by the San Felipe Exes Museum, Bedell Avenue and Westlawn Cemetery.

• Civic Center grounds: three memorials in one stop, including the T-33A Memorial and the Purple Heart Memorial.
• 309 S. Main St.: Laughlin Heritage Foundation Museum, free of charge, across from the courthouse.
• San Felipe Exes Museum: monument to Ramon G. Gutierrez.
• U.S. Post Office on Bedell Avenue: memorial to Raymond Losano.
• Westlawn Cemetery: cenotaph for Lt. Jack Laughlin.

For a longer county drive, the historical markers connected to Camp Del Rio, Camp Michie and the Pecos River area extend the route into the west county landscape near Comstock, where the High Bridge once stood as the highest railroad bridge in North America at 321 feet above the river and 2,180 feet long. That scale helps explain why the borderland history here has always felt larger than one town. In Val Verde County, military service, aviation and local identity are written into the land itself, and the memorials make that history visible enough to be walked, taught and remembered.