Norfleet Giddings Bone

Who was Norfleet Giddings Bone?

Norfleet Giddings Bone was a landscape architect and civil engineer whose career in the military and the private sector spanned nearly five decades. He was born in Gainesville, Texas, but received his secondary education and first college degree in New Mexico. In 1911, he graduated from the preparatory department of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts in Mesilla Park. He continued on at New Mexico A&M and received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering in 1915.

Bone served twice in the United States Army. He enlisted first in 1917 and was part of the First Aero Squadron based in New Mexico. Between 1917 and 1920 he served tours in England, France and Germany. He left military service in 1920 but rejoined in 1927 after having received a second Bachelor of Science degree, this time in landscape architecture from Texas A&M University.

During his second enlistment, he served with the United States Army Air Corps based at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. While there, he was appointed the assistant to the Quartermaster General. During this enlistment, which ended in 1932, he also served as the Supervising Landscape Architect and Landscape Engineer at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, and as a supervisor of landscape design at Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana.