History
Key West's aviation history begins with a 1913 flight to Cuba by Augustin Parla. In 1928, Pan American Airlines began scheduled flights from Key West. Meacham Field was the primary runway for Key West. It was initially pressed into Army use after the Pearl Harbor bombing, and then later during World War II by the Navy as an adjunct runway to the Trumbo Point Seaplane Base and the main Naval Air Station for fixed-wing and lighter-than-air (i.e., blimp) aircraft on Boca Chica Key. After the war, control of the runway was returned to the city and the civilian facility was eventually called the Key West Municipal Airport. In January 1953, the city gave Monroe County clear title to Meacham Field, allowing the county to apply for CAA grants. It was at this time that the name changed to the Key West International Airport.
Read more about this topic: Key West International Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)