page_title: St. Louis Lambert International Airport
section_title: Beginnings
hierarchical_section_title: St. Louis Lambert International Airport / History / Beginnings
caption_attribution_description: Aerial view of the U.S. Naval Air Station St. Louis, Missouri (USA), in the 1940s.
context_page_description: St. Louis Lambert International Airport, formerly Lambert–St. Louis International Airport, is an international airport serving St. Louis, Missouri, United States. It is 14 miles northwest of downtown St. Louis in unincorporated St. Louis County between Berkeley and Bridgeton. Commonly referred to as Lambert Field or simply Lambert, it is the largest and busiest airport in Missouri with over 259 peak daily departures to 78 nonstop domestic and international locations. Lambert is the largest medium hub airport in the country. Lambert covers 2,800 acres of land.
  Named for Albert Bond Lambert, an Olympic medalist and prominent St. Louis aviator, the airport rose to international prominence in the 20th century thanks to its association with Charles Lindbergh, its groundbreaking air traffic control, its status as the primary hub of Trans World Airlines, and its iconic terminal. St. Louis Lambert International Airport is the primary airport in the St. Louis area, with MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, about 37 miles east, serving as a secondary metropolitan commercial airport. The two airports are connected by the Red Line of the city's light rail mass transit system, the MetroLink.
context_section_description: The airport originated as a balloon launching base called Kinloch Field, part of the 1890s Kinloch Park suburban development. The Wright brothers and their Exhibition Team visited the field while touring with their aircraft. During a visit to St. Louis, Theodore Roosevelt flew with pilot Arch Hoxsey on October 11, 1910, becoming the first U.S. president to fly. Later, Kinloch hosted the first experimental parachute jump.
  In June 1920, the Aero Club of St. Louis leased 170 acres of cornfield, the defunct Kinloch Racing Track and the Kinloch Airfield in October 1923, during The International Air Races. The field was officially dedicated as Lambert–St. Louis Flying Field in honor of Albert Bond Lambert, an Olympic silver medalist golfer in the 1904 Summer Games, president of Lambert Pharmaceutical Corporation (which made Listerine), and the first person to receive a pilot's license in St. Louis. In February 1925, "Major" (his 'rank' was given by the Aero Club and not the military) Lambert bought the field and added hangars and a passenger terminal. Charles Lindbergh's first piloting job was flying airmail for Robertson Aircraft Corporation from Lambert Field; he left the airport for New York about a week before his record-breaking flight to Paris in 1927. In February 1928, the City of St. Louis leased the airport for $1. Later that year, Lambert sold the airport to the City after a $2 million bond issue was passed, making it one of the first municipally-owned airport in the United States.
  In the late 1920s, Lambert Field became the first airport with an air traffic control system–albeit one that communicated with pilots via waving flags. The first controller was Archie League.
  In 1925, the airport became home to Naval Air Station St. Louis, a Naval Air Reserve facility that became an active-duty installation during World War II.
  In 1930, the airport was officially christened Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The first terminal building opened in 1933.
  By the 1930s, Robertson Air Lines, Marquette Airlines and Eastern Air Lines provided passenger service to St. Louis, as did Transcontinental & Western Air (later renamed Trans World Airlines).
  In August 1942, voters passed a $4.5 million bond issue to expand the airport by 867 acres and build a new terminal.
  During World War II, the airport became a manufacturing base for the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation and Curtiss-Wright.
caption: Aerial view of Naval Air Station St. Louis in the mid-1940s
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