Smith Reynolds Airport - History

History

The question of an airmail route and an airport for Winston-Salem was decided in the 1920s when land west of Greensboro was selected over a Winston-Salem tract, and Winston-Salem withdrew from the Tri-city Airport Commission.

A portion of land positioned off Walkertown Avenue (present-day Liberty Street) was located and determined to be the perfect site for a new airport. Clint Miller pledged $17,000 for the development of facilities at the new airfield, so when the new Airport Corporation met for the first time, they decided the new airfield would be named Miller Municipal Airport. Reynolds Aviation would be the main activity at Miller Field for its first five years. There were commuter flights to New York, Detroit, Philadelphia and Baltimore, and weekend taxi service to Wrightsville and Myrtle Beach. In 1932, when Dick Reynolds disbanded Reynolds Aviation, a group of local businessmen formed Camel City Flying Service. Camel City renovated the existing structures, strengthened field lights and installed a grandstand for aerial shows.

In 1933, the Civil Works Administration, a program developed by The New Deal, began extending each runway by 500 feet (150 m), lining the main hangar floors with concrete and relocating the field lighting system. Throughout the 1930s, Miller Airport was the recipient of many projects supported by the New Deal including a new administration building, a third runway, and a new field lighting system. The airport land was expanded to 170 acres (0.69 km2) and a fourth runway was added by 1938.

In 1940, Charles Norfleet, the president of the Airport Commission, contacted Eastern Airlines, requesting them to begin servicing Miller Airport. When Eastern Airlines agreed to add Miller Airport to its North-South route, Dick Reynolds and his sisters, trustees of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, donated funds from the Foundation to further modernize and expand the airport. In 1942, Miller Municipal Airport was renamed and dedicated to Smith Reynolds, a pioneer in aviation before his untimely death at the age of 20.

From 1942 until 1945, Smith Reynolds Airport served as a training base for military pilots in addition to its commercial and private airline services. Camel City Flying Services had become Piedmont Aviation, Inc. in 1940 and spent the 1940s building a base in flight training and airline sales. The company grew to over 80 employees by 1947 when the Civil Aeronautics Board awarded Piedmont Airlines a temporary certificate for regional air service. The company split into two divisions in order to continue the fixed base services, and service four feeder line routes extending from Wilmington, NC to Cincinnati, Ohio, servicing twenty-two airports with one of three of the original DC-3's affectionately known as the Pacemakers.

By 1953 Piedmont Airlines employed over 680 people and grossed over $5.3 million in gross revenue by covering almost 3,000 miles (4,800 km) on its route system. It grew into one of the nation's major airlines when it was merged into USAir in 1989. Although Piedmont's largest operation was at Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, they had maintained a significant presence at INT. USAir (later US Airways) closed its INT crew base in 1991. Their heavy maintenance base was closed in September 1998, leaving only specialty maintenance shops, the last of which was closed in 2005. US Airways still maintains its largest reservations center in Winston-Salem.