page_title: Felts Field
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Felts Field / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Airplanes. National Air Races. Boeing Air Transport Inc. 23, September 1927.
context_page_description: Felts Field is a public airport five miles northeast of downtown Spokane, in Spokane County, Washington. It is owned by Spokane City-County.
  The airport has two hard surface runways. Felts Field is used for general aviation now, but it was Spokane's airline airport before the opening of Spokane International Airport.
  It is included in the Federal Aviation Administration National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021, in which it is categorized as a regional reliever facility.
context_section_description: Felts Field, Spokane's historic airfield, is on the south bank of the Spokane River east of Spokane. Aviation activities began in 1913.  In 1920 the field, then called the Parkwater airstrip, was designated a municipal flying field at the instigation of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce. In 1926, the United States Department of Commerce recognized Parkwater as an airport, one of the first in the West. In September 1927, in conjunction with Spokane's National Air Races that Felts Field hosted
  , the airport was renamed Felts Field for James Buell Felts (1898–1927), a Washington Air National Guard aviator killed in a crash that May. Parkwater Aviation Field, later Felts Field, was the location for flight instruction, charter service, airplane repair, aerial photography, headquarters of the 116th Observation Squadron of the Washington Air National Guard, and eventually the first airmail and commercial flights in and out of Spokane.
  After World War II, commercial air traffic moved to Geiger Field (later Spokane International Airport). Felts Field remains a busy regional hub for private and small-plane aviation and related businesses and services. In 1991 it was designated Felts Field Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
  Today the airport is used for general aviation. No scheduled passenger service remains at Felts, though commercial scheduled Part 135 cargo operations remain via UPS and DHL contracting (Ameriflight LLC and previously Merlin Express Airways).
caption: Boeing Air Transport B-40 at Felts Field on September 23, 1927
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