 Brookley Air Force Base had its aeronautical beginnings with Mobile's first municipal airport, the original Bates Field.However, the site itself had been occupied from the time of Mobile's founding, starting with the home of Mobile's founding father, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, in the early 18th century.In 1938 the Army Air Corps took over the then Bates Field site and established the Brookley Army Air Field.