History
The airport was originally constructed at a cost of $10 million as a U.S. Army Air Forces base during World War II, opening in 1941 under the name Baer Field and later Baer Army Air Field. During wartime, over 100,000 military personnel served out of Baer Field and its more than 100 structures. The principal units at the installation were the First Troop Carrier Group and the 45th Army Air Force Base Unit. By the end of World War II, the city of Fort Wayne bought the airport from the federal government's General Services Administration for the price of $1, renaming it Fort Wayne Municipal Airport in 1946.
Under the management of the Fort Wayne/Allen County Airport Authority since 1985, the airport was renamed Fort Wayne International Airport in 1991. Through the 1990s, the airport underwent the largest expansion and revitalization in its history, with an expanded and updated terminal designed by MSKTD & Associates, Inc., runway upgrades, and the establishment of the Air Trade Center on the southwest side of the property. In 2006, a modernized 210 feet (64 m) air traffic control tower was opened on the south side of the airport, at a price of $9.7 million.
Located in the Lieutenant Paul Baer Terminal, the Greater Fort Wayne Aviation Museum recounts early aviation history in Northeastern Indiana.
Read more about this topic: Fort Wayne International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Every library should try to be complete on something, if it were only the history of pinheads.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)