History
The first officially sanctioned landing field in Austin was Penn Field. At the Chamber of Commerce's behest, a United States Army delegation came to Austin in 1917 to scout out suitable sites for an airfield to serve the region. After the initial suggestion of Camp Mabry was rejected, a 318-acre (1.29 km2) parcel of land just south of St. Edward's University in South Austin was deemed suitable. Penn Field opened in 1918, named after Austin aviator Eugene Doak Penn, who died while training in Italy during World War I.
Read more about this topic: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all Magazines shows plainly that those which have attained celebrity were indebted for it to articles similar in natureto Berenice—although, I grant you, far superior in style and execution. I say similar in nature. You ask me in what does this nature consist? In the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque: the fearful coloured into the horrible: the witty exaggerated into the burlesque: the singular wrought out into the strange and mystical.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)