__NOTOC__

Pan American Miami Terminal aerial view in the 1930s

International Pan American Airport is a former airport in

Dinner Key Dinner Key is a marina complex in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, Florida, along the shore of Biscayne Bay on South Bayshore Drive. It was originally an island, but was connected to the mainland in 1914 by filling in the intervening space. ...

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

operated by

Pan American World Airways Pan American World Airways, originally founded as Pan American Airways and commonly known as Pan Am, was an American airline that was the principal and largest international air carrier and unofficial overseas flag carrier of the United States ...

from 1932 to 1945. During its existence, it operated alongside

Coast Guard Air Station Dinner Key Coast Guard Air Station Dinner Key is a former United States Coast Guard facility located in Dinner Key, Miami, Florida. It was built next to the International Pan American Airport. History A United States Naval Air Station was established on ...

History

Dinner Key was the site of the first continental naval air station in the United States, which opened in 1918. The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

vacated the facility following the end of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

that year, and it was then used by commercial

seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

operators. The New York, Rio & Buenos Aires Airline began service at the airport in 1929 and merged into Pan Am in 1930. Dinner Key served as a base for

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

s during the 1930s and 1940s. It was one of the world's largest

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

s and the main hub for air traffic between North and South America. The inaugural flight from Dinner Key to Panama took place on December 1, 1930.

Charles Lindbergh Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...

, who was a technical adviser to Pan Am, surveyed some of the early air routes. Because of inadequate landing facilities along the South American route, flying clipper ships were utilized by Pan Am, forming a vital link between North and South America. Pan Am opened an

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

terminal building at the airport in 1934, featuring a globe in its lobby that was 10 feet in diameter and weighed 3.5 tons. Pan Am operated

Sikorsky S-41 The Sikorsky S-41 was an amphibious flying boat airliner produced in the United States in the early 1930s. Essentially a scaled-up monoplane version of the Sikorsky S-38 biplane flying boat, Pan Am operated the type on routes in the Caribbean, So ...

and

Sikorsky S-42 The Sikorsky S-42 was a commercial flying boat designed and built by Sikorsky Aircraft to meet requirements for a long-range flying boat laid out by Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) in 1931. The innovative design included wing flaps, variabl ...

flying boats from the airport. The Navy requisitioned the entire Dinner Key facility in 1943 and commissioned it as Dinner Key NAF. After the technological advances of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the construction of suitable airports in South America made seaplanes largely obsolete, Pan Am transferred its operations to

Miami International Airport Miami International Airport , also known as MIA and historically as Wilcox Field, is the primary airport serving the greater Miami metropolitan area with over 1,000 daily flights to 167 domestic and international destinations, including most co ...

, which had been in operation since 1928 as Pan American Field. Pan Am's final flight to Dinner Key took place August 9, 1945. This happened to be the same day an atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, essentially ending World War II. Today, the airport is the site of

Miami City Hall Miami City Hall is the local government headquarters for the City of Miami, Florida. It has been located in the former Pan American Airlines Terminal Building on Dinner Key, which was designed by Delano & Aldrich and constructed in 1934 for ...

, located in the old Pan Am terminal building. Two of Pan Am's hangars are still in use by the Grove Key Marina. The terminal's centerpiece globe was showcased in the lobby of Miami's Museum of Science from 1960 until the museum moved in 2015, and in 2022 was installed at the site of the Miami Worldcenter development.

Gallery

File:Dinner Key seaplane base Miami, Florida (4202781209).jpg,

Seaplane A seaplane is a powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of takeoff, taking off and water landing, landing (alighting) on water.Gunston, "The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary", 2009. Seaplanes are usually divided into two categories based on their tec ...

s and terminal File:Miami PanAm Terminal 1940.jpg, Pan Am terminal at Dinner Key in 1944

References

External links

* {{Coord, 25, 43, 43.20, N, 80, 14, 7.25, W, display=title Defunct airports in Florida Historic American Buildings Survey in Florida Pan Am