Fairfax Municipal Airport (known as Fairfax Field during

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 World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

) was a

Kansas City, Kansas Kansas City, abbreviated as "KCK", is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Kansas, and the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is an inner suburb of the older and more populous Kansas City, Missouri, after which it is named. As of ...

airfield from 1921 that was used during 1935–1949 by the military. Federal land adjacent to the airfield included a WWII

B-25 Mitchell The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in ...

plant and modification center and a Military Air Transport terminal. After being used as a Cold War-era

Air Force Base An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

, it was used for airliner servicing by

TWA Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...

and for automobile and jet fighter aircraft production by General Motors, which built a 1985 Fairfax Plant over runways when the municipal airport closed.

Background

The airport site is on the

Goose Island (Kansas) __NOTOC__ Goose Island may refer to: Places Australia * Goose Island (South Australia), a small rocky island lying off Wardang Island, west of the Yorke Peninsula **Goose Island Conservation Park, a protected area **Goose Island Aquatic Reserve ...

river bend. At Goose Island, the

United States Government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...

constructed flood protection levees and walls around the

Fairfax Industrial District Fairfax may refer to: Places United States * Fairfax, California * Fairfax Avenue, a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California * Fairfax District, Los Angeles, California, centered on Fairfax Avenue * Fairfax, Georgia * Fairfax, Indiana * ...

, as well as three pump houses including two on the airfield that was first used for a 1921 " American Legion air meet". The airfield was subsequently used by Emory J. Sweeney's School of Aviation.

Sweeney Airport

Sweeney Airport was named in 1925, and the 403 Pursuit Squadron was assigned to Kansas City at the end of 1925. The "Fairfax

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bea ...

" map with the airport was drawn on April 1, 1925, as an area "of 1,373.07 acres" outside the city limits divided as follows: "The Kansas City Industrial Land Company owned 1,122.85 acres; the

Union Pacific Railroad Company The Union Pacific Railroad , legally Union Pacific Railroad Company and often called simply Union Pacific, is a freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Paci ...

owned 32.80 acres; eight private owners owned 72.18 acres; two railroads other than the Union Pacific owned 66.47 acres; land set aside for dedicated roads was 31.54 acres; ndland on which dikes were built was 57.23 acres." Sweeney Airport was mapped by the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

on July 17, 1928, as a trapezoid with .

Fairfax Airport

Fairfax Airport was named in 1928 when Sweeney Airport "was taken over by Wood Brothers Corporation"--

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 ...

and Phil Love landed at the airport "in Love's Ryan monoplane" on August 2, 1928. Dedicated in 1929, the facility was operated by the "Fairfax Airport Company" ("Fairfax Airports, Inc." in 1931), and the 1st Fairfax passenger service aircraft was a

Fokker Super Universal ] The Fokker Super Universal was an airliner produced in the United States in the late 1920s, an enlarged and improved version of the Fokker Universal, fitted with cantilever wings and an enclosed cockpit. It was subsequently also manufactured un ...

cabin plane (5 passengers) of the

Universal Aviation Corporation Universal Aviation Corporation was an airline holding company based in United States. History Universal Aviation Corporation was stood up to merge operations of Universal Air Lines Corporation, Robertson Aircraft Corporation and Northern Air ...

. The

Southwest Air Service Express The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

airline scheduled flights from "Fairfax Airport" to Dallas/Ft Worth in March 1929, and a " Travelair six-passenger carrier of Central Air Lines crashed on approach to Fairfax in January 1930. An "impressive structure" costing $60,000 and with pay toilets for extra profit was built in 193x as a new administration building, and the land also had a

natural gas field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

with 14 wells for extra revenue (a post-WWII

Phillips Petroleum Phillips Petroleum Company was an American oil company incorporated in 1917 that expanded into petroleum refining, marketing and transportation, natural gas gathering and the chemicals sectors. It was Phillips Petroleum that first found oil in th ...

tract was along tanks of the Great Lakes Pipe Line Company.) In 1933, the airport had hangars; airlines including American,

Braniff Braniff Airways, Inc., operated as Braniff International Airways from 1948 until 1965, and then Braniff International from 1965 until air operations ceased, was an airline in the United States that once flew air carrier operations from 1928 un ...

, and

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called All American Aviation, which soon ...

; and aircraft manufacturers such as Rearwin Airplanes ( American Eagle Eaglet aircraft were also being produced.) By 1938, the Eddie Fisher Flying Service used

Waco RNF The Waco F series is a series of United States, American-built general aviation and military biplane Trainer (aircraft), trainers of the 1930s from the Waco Aircraft Company. Development The Waco 'F' series of biplanes supplanted and then repla ...

aircraft for flight instruction.

Military support

Adjacent to Fairfax Airport was a 1935–42 naval reserve air base, which by 1940 was a Navy Elimination Air Base ("E-base", colloq.) for screening aviation candidates. Survey work for an

Air Force Plant The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

began in December 1940, and the city purchased the airport in February 1941 for $600,000 from the Kansas City Industrial Land Company. The

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

(AAF) leased the city's Fairfax Airport by 1941; when the

Works Projects Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, in ...

allotted $1,536,717 for improvements and expansion of the airport. The 4 civilian runways were improved with concrete of 150 feet in width and 185,000 square yards of parking apron.—the government also purchased an alfalfa field of for the AAF plant and for right-of-way to the airfield. Groundbreaking for Air Force Plant NC, a "government-owned, contractor-operated" plant of

North American Aviation North American Aviation (NAA) was a major American aerospace manufacturer that designed and built several notable aircraft and spacecraft. Its products included: the T-6 Texan trainer, the P-51 Mustang fighter, the B-25 Mitchell bomber, the ...

was on March 8, 1941. (a

USAAF Modification Center United States Army Air Forces Modification Centers were World War II facilities at which military aircraft underwent post-production changes in order to modify or install equipment needed for specific roles or theaters of operation. The majority ...

was built May–October 1942—a different modification center was at Kansas City, Missouri.) Fairfax's civilian manufacturing facility for Rearwin airplanes was bought in early 1942 by "Australian-owned" Commonwealth Aircraft Company which also opened a 2nd airplane factory in Kansas City, Missouri, at

West Bottoms The West Bottoms is an industrial area immediately to the west of downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Located in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas City, Kansas it sits at the confluence of the Missouri River and the Kansas River. The area is one ...

. Military Air Transport Service moved an air freight terminal to Fairfax on 2 March 1945 from Kansas City, Missouri, and the Fairfax military installation became an operating location of Rosecrans Army Airfield on April 15, 1945 (the Air Transport Command operating location at Fairfax was discontinued by December 6, 1945.)

Post-war operations

By late 1945

Transcontinental and Western Air Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...

used the former modification center for aircraft maintenance until the

Great Flood of 1951 In mid-July 1951, heavy rains led to a great rise of water in the Kansas River, Missouri River, and other surrounding areas of the Central United States. Flooding occurred in the Kansas River, Kansas, Neosho River, Neosho, Marais Des Cygnes Riv ...

—the city of Kansas City, Mo., built the new Mid-Continent Airport for the TWA

Kansas City Overhaul Base The Kansas City Overhaul Base is a manufacturing and maintenance plant adjacent to Kansas City International Airport. The plant at its peak in the 1960s and 1970s employed more than 6,000 people who worked on repairing the entire fleet of Tra ...

northwest of the city (the modification center was razed shortly after March 1985). Commonwealth Aircraft produced post-war Skyranger aircraft at Fairfax until "transferred in 1946 to the former Columbia Aircraft factory" in New York, and the Buick-Oldsmobile-Pontiac Assembly Plant adjacent to Fairfax Field, operating in the leased former bomber plant, "finished its first automobile in June 1946". Post-war military activations at Fairfax included the 4101st

Army Air Force Base Unit An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

( Reserve Training) on July 12, 1946 and the 564th Bombardment Squadron on January 6, 1947. Despite a 1948 plan for the base to "be withdrawn from surplus", in "October 1949 the U.S. Air Force terminated its lease on Fairfax Airport, and the city of Kansas City, Kansas, regained control of the facility". An "annexation ordinance" expanded the city limits to encompass the "United States Government

rea of REA or Rea may refer to: Places * Rea, Lombardy, in Italy * Rea, Missouri, United States * River Rea, a river in Birmingham, England * River Rea, Shropshire, a river in Shropshire, England * Rea, Hungarian name of Reea village in Totești Commune ...

2 acres" and the airport's with 13 buildings—the "Fairfax plat" was the area within the northeast corner of the

of ~. On May 22, 1950, Fairfax's 2472d AF Reserve Training Center and

442d Troop Carrier Wing 44 may refer to: * 44 (number) * one of the years 44 BC, AD 44, 1944, 2044 Military *44M Tas, a Hungarian medium/heavy tank design of World War II *44M Tas Rohamlöveg, a Hungarian tank destroyer design of World War II, derived from the 44M Tas t ...

moved to Naval Air Technical Training Center Olathe. In 1950

Mid-Continent Airlines Mid-Continent Airlines was an airline which operated in the central United States from the 1930s until 1952 when it was acquired by and merged with Braniff International Airways. Mid-Continent Airlines was originally founded as a flight school at ...

was contracted for

airmail Airmail (or air mail) is a mail transport service branded and sold on the basis of at least one leg of its journey being by air. Airmail items typically arrive more quickly than surface mail, and usually cost more to send. Airmail may be th ...

out of Fairfax ( North Central Route#106 operations moved to the Mid-Continent Airport after the 1951 flood.) The 4610th Air Base Squadron at Fairfax Field became the April 1951 base operating unit for the nearby

under construction at

Grandview Airport Richards-Gebaur Memorial Airport is a former airport that operated alongside Richards-Gebaur Air Reserve Station (also Richards-Gebaur Air Force Station) until the base's closure in 1994, and until it was closed in 1999. Formerly, it was oper ...

(Fairfax's

Air Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command of the United States Air Force, responsible for continental air defense. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was established in 1946, briefly ina ...

units moved to Grandview Air Force Base after beneficial occupancy on February 16, 1954.)

Municipal airport

Fairfax Municipal Airport was named by the time of the

and in 1953 the F-84F Thunderflash aircraft assembly line was in the same GM Assembly Plant. On June 20, 1954 a Zantop DC-3A crashed on approach to Fairfax, killing 3. Fairfax was the July 12, 1955 landing site of a TWA

DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

trainer that "had just taken off from Fairfax" before colliding with and destroying a Cessna of Baker's Flying Service. The 1963 fatal journey for

Patsy Cline Patsy is a given name often used as a diminutive of the feminine given name Patricia or sometimes the masculine name Patrick, or occasionally other names containing the syllable "Pat" (such as Cleopatra, Patience, Patrice, or Patricia). Amon ...

Piper Comanche The Piper PA-24 Comanche is an American four-seat or six-seat, low-wing, all-metal, light aircraft of semimonocoque construction with tricycle retractable landing gear. Piper Aircraft designed and developed the Comanche, which first flew on M ...

began at Fairfax, and the airport was added to the GNIS on October 13, 1978. Fairfax's longest runway (17/35) was long when the airport's last flight departed on March 31, 1985, and on April 1, 1985, the land was added to the Fairfax District industrial area. The General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant was completed in 1985 on the runways, and auto production at the WWII bomber plant building ceased in May 1987 (GM had purchased it in 1960 and it was razed in 1989).

References

External links

{{External media, float=left , image
Airliners at KCK
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1st B-25 completed at Fairfax
1921 establishments in Kansas Airports established in 1921 1985 disestablishments in Kansas

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...

Defunct airports in Kansas History of Kansas City, Kansas