Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) is getting ready to celebrate a century of service to Cleveland and Northeast Ohio on July 1, 2025. The airport is rightly proud of its rich heritage and contributions to the economy of the region and to the development of commercial aviation in the United States and world. In a previous article https://www.aviationcle.com/post/95-years-of-historic-firsts-at-cle), I highlight a number of these historic “firsts.”
In another article, (https://www.aviationcle.com/post/a-visit-to-cle-in-the-1930s), a visual history of early days at CLE in the 1930s is presented, while in this article (https://www.aviationcle.com/post/cle-an-exceptionally-well-managed-municipal-undertaking-it-really-was-in-1937), the airport’s former glory days as a well-run leader in the world of aviation around 1937, is recounted.
Hopkins is also in the midst of planning for the complete makeover of its aging terminal facilities and landside campus through its $3 billion Terminal Modernization Development Program (TMDP). This decade-long program’s goal is to create the best possible passenger experience while transforming Hopkins into a modern facility all of us can be extremely proud of and happy to use.
One of the most common assertions about CLE’s history is that it was the first municipal airport in the country when it opened in 1925 (www.clevelandairport.com/about-us/facts-figures). However, that oft-repeated claim does not stand up to deeper scrutiny. While it depends on how you define this contention, several other airports make the same claim, and based on my research, one seems to have beaten CLE by about half a year.
The Contenders for First Municipal Airport in the US
It appears that College Park Airport (CGS) in Maryland is the oldest continuously operating airport in the country, established in August 1909. Next was Pearson Field (VUO) in Vancouver, Washington, founded in 1911. However, neither of these airports ever supported commercial airline service.
Albany Airport (ALB), in the capital city of the State of New York, claims to be the first and oldest municipal airport in the United States. In 1908, the airstrip was on a former polo field on Loudonville Road, three miles north of the city in the town of Colonie. In 1909, the airport moved to Westerlo Island, in the city of Albany, and the airport was named at this time.
Albany Mayor John Boyd Thacher II once said "a city without the foresight to build an airport for the new traffic may soon be left behind in the race for competition.” Consequently, in 1928, he decided to build a new modern airport on the Shaker site near Albany-Shaker Road in Colonie, not far from the original polo fields used as the first location of the municipal airport.
The Albany Airport faced frequent closures and the possibility of shutting down in the late 1930s and 1940s, leading to a series of improvements. It was closed completely from January 1939 to December 1940, when it reopened for daytime traffic only, and has been operating without restrictions since January 1942.
In my opinion, Albany's assertion to being the "first" is questionable, if we prioritize an airport's consistent location and uninterrupted operation throughout its history, since the airport has relocated multiple times, and the current airport site was also shut down for nearly two years.
The City of Tucson, Arizona, also claims to have built the first commercial, municipal airport in the country (https://www.flytucson.com/taa/about/history/). City Council approved the financing for the airport on July 21, 1919, and the city, in cooperation with the Tucson Chamber of Commerce, established and constructed the airport. The first plane landed November 20, 1919.
The field was located on the Old Nogales Highway, where the Tucson Rodeo Grounds are today. Known as McCauley Field and rechristened Fishburn Field, after Tucson City Councilman Randolph Fishburn, the airport was renamed Tucson Municipal Flying Field in 1923. It soon became a regular refueling stop for the US Army Air Service and demand soon exceeded capacity. In 1925, the field relocated to a larger parcel of land where Davis Monthan Air Force Base is today. The city purchased land at the current site of Tucson International Airport (TUS) in 1941.
In summary, Tucson’s airport changed locations twice, and the city’s first municipal airport opened over a decade after Albany’s, so its claim to be first is questionable.
In 1920, in Long Beach, California, the city developed a municipal flying field with aviator Earl Daugherty on his land at Long Beach Boulevard and Willow Street called Daugherty Municipal Airfield. Previous flights in the city had operated along the actual beach!
By November 1923, Long Beach realized they could not handle the number of flights with just the beach and Daugherty’s small airfield, so they decided to expand to a 150-acre parcel between Cherry Avenue and Spring Street. It made Long Beach the first city in California to establish a municipal airport. Groundbreaking for the new airport occurred on November 26, 1923, in the same location as today’s airport (LGB), and it was dedicated on December 20, 1924. The old Daugherty Aviation Field was closed in 1925, once the new airport was established.
Long Beach officially celebrated its centennial in November 2023 (https://www.longbeach.gov/lgb/about-us/100th/). While the airport did change locations once, LGB has been operating in the same location without interruption since December 1924, over six months longer than Cleveland Municipal Airport.
Conclusion
So, what is Cleveland’s position in aviation history in the United States? It seems like it is the second oldest, continuously operating, large, municipal airport with ongoing commercial service situated in the same location in the USA. Being number two is nothing to be ashamed of!
