Curtis Field opened just north of Brady in 1942 as a pilot-training school. Also during World War IIqv a German prisoner-of-war camp was built three miles east of the town; it housed more than 300 Germans, most of them members of Rommel's Afrika Korps (see german prisoners of war).

Brady grew slowly from the 1920s through the 1950s, with population estimates reaching a peak of 6,800 in 1958. In 1959 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway abandoned the section of track between Brownwood and Brady, thereby reducing Brady's access to outside markets. The population fell to 5,338 by 1961 and subsequently stabilized. Brady Reservoir was completed in 1963 for flood control, municipal and industrial water needs, and recreation. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe abandoned the track between Brady and Eden in 1972, leaving the town with only a branch track to connect it with the main line at Lometa, in Lampasas County.

Brady had 5,925 residents and 142 businesses in 1988. It was principally a farming and ranching community. Its industry included a mohair-combing plant and sand-mining operations. The Francis King Art Gallery and Museum houses works by King, a painter and sculptor, and a collection of restored antique cars. Brady celebrates an annual band festival and goat cook-off every Labor Day. The stone courthouse, built in 1900, was renovated in 1974. In 1989 G. Rollie White Downs, one of the first horse racetracks in Texas after the passage of pari-mutuel laws in 1989, operated briefly in Brady but was unprofitable and closed by 1990. Brady's population in 1990 was 5,946. BACK<

Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl, Handbook of Texas Online