Air Born
By Megan Verhelst, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Mar. 2–I OWA CITY– It started as a pasture on the Benjamin farm, just outside Iowa City. Ninety years later, the Iowa City Municipal Airport is a hub for private aircraft owners, local corporations and the University of Iowa.
Development of the airport, which Jan Nash of Tallgrass Historians in Iowa City called one of the most historic airports in the state, dates to 1918, when local boosters sought a location for a permanent landing strip in Iowa City. The U.S. Post Office, meanwhile, was looking for refueling landing sites west of Chicago.
It was a time when aviation in Iowa City was up and coming, Nash said.
“Iowa City was quite advanced and had a lot of local support,” said Nash, who wrote a recently published book about the airport’s history.
The book tells how local boosters advocated for developing the landing strip. Those boosters started talks with the Post Office in late 1919, and Iowa City had its first airmail stop in January 1920.
“Part of the reason for aviation in Iowa City was because (the city) was a direct route between Chicago and Omaha to move the first airmail,” said Howard Horan, chairman of the Iowa City Airport Commission.
The airport became a city responsibility in 1922, when Mayor Emma Harvat signed a lease for Smith Field, as it was known then. In 1929, Iowa City passed an airport bond vote, the first time in Iowa an airport was supported by a bond issue, Nash’s book says.
In 1930, Boeing Air Transport, later United Airlines, built the Boeing hangar to shelter passengers, freight and mail. The structure still stands today, though it is scheduled to be demolished. During World War II, the airport served as a training facility for pilots while commercial flights were suspended because of the war.
In the 1950s, the airport saw an in crease in commercial flights after adding concrete runways, said Michael Tharp, airport operations specialist.
Competition grew with Cedar Rapids’ municipal airport, causing United Airlines to cancel service to Iowa City in 1959. When Ozark Air Lines pulled service out of Iowa City in 1972, the airport became a general aviation airport.
General aviation includes hobby, corporate traffic and flight instruction, Tharp said.
But he said the airport is still vital to Iowa City.
“A mile of road gets you farther down the road,” he said, “but a mile of runway gets you anywhere in the world.” Iowa City residents may not always know who flies in and out of the airport, but the facility affects them, Horan said.
With the UI so close, people come with “money on the table,” looking to make an investment in the city, he said. University Hospitals also uses the airport for its transplant program, as well as research.
Nash said the airport is an economic booster for the area. “Communities all over the state would kill to have our airport,” she said. The airport began a 5,000-foot runway extension in 2007. Next up will be demolition of the 78year-old Boeing hangar.
Horan said the hangar is being torn down because of safety reasons and funding.
“We haven’t hit it in 78 years,” he said, “but it’s still coming down.”
Contact the writer: (319) 339-3162 or megan.
verhelst@gazettecommunications.com
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Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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