History
The Airport started when Charles Hooks built a runway for his own personal use. His hobby eventually became a business, and he subsequently built a runway and a main terminal building. It was first opened for public use in the 1960s. Shortly after its opening, Hooks' son, David, was killed in the crash of a small plane that he was piloting under the supervision of a flight instructor. All four people on the plane were killed. David was about 16 years old at the time of his death. The airport's name was changed from Houston Northwest Airport to David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport in his memory.
Until the 1980s, the airport was run and maintained by Hooks, and his wife Irma. Upon the death of Mrs. Hooks, her daughter stepped in and helped with its operation.
In 1989, Charles Hooks retired and sold the airport to the Gill Family.
In 2009 a fire occurred at the airport. A man was burned, and several aircraft were destroyed.
On June 26, 2010, another fire occurred at the airport, destroying another large hangar. One helicopter and several aircraft components were destroyed.
In early 2010, Hooks Airport received a notable resident when the B-17G Flying Fortress 'Texas Raiders' was permanently moved from William P. Hobby Airport to a spacious hangar in the Tomball Jet Center as a cost-saving measure. 'Texas Raiders' will use Hooks Airport as her base of operations for the 2010 air show season and into the foreseeable future.
Read more about this topic: David Wayne Hooks Memorial 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 visual is sorely undervalued in modern scholarship. Art history has attained only a fraction of the conceptual sophistication of literary criticism.... Drunk with self-love, criticism has hugely overestimated the centrality of language to western culture. It has failed to see the electrifying sign language of images.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)