Our monthly series sharing articles from our Historic Preservation Commission continues today with a bit of history on the Gerald R. Ford International Airport.
On Oct. 29, 1919, Kent County Board of Supervisors passed a motion to use the old county fairgrounds at Madison and 36th Street as a public aviation and landing field – a site that would become the Kent County Airport. By 1926, efforts were underway to establish an air service between Kent County and Detroit. When this service was formally inaugurated in July of 1926, it marked the first regularly scheduled passenger airline service in the United States.
On Aug. 12, 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis at Kent County Airport. This visit came months after his historic New York-to-Paris flight. The administration building at the airport, completed in 1939, was part of the federally funded construction boom of the 1930s.
The Kent County Airport continued to expand through the next few decades. At its peak, the airport encompassed an area bounded by 32nd Street to the north, 44th Street to the south, Jefferson and Madison Avenues to the west and Eastern Avenue to the east. By 1952, a new runway was completed across 44th Street to accommodate larger aircraft. For a time, airport workers blocked 44th Street traffic with movable gates to allow aircraft to use the runway.
At midnight on Saturday, Nov. 23, 1963, all Kent County air service from the old facility in Paris Township/Grand Rapids was officially transferred to the new facility in Cascade Township, renamed in 1999 as the Gerald R. Ford International Airport.
More stories and photos of the airport can be found in the Kentwood Heritage Room located on the second floor of the Kent District Library - Richard L. Root/Kentwood Branch. For more information about the Historic Preservation Commission, visit kentwood.us/HPC.
Original source can be found here.
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