NSV Scenic & Historic Mississippi

MISSISSIPPI'S FIRST EZINE

Charles Lindbergh thought it was a good idea...obviously the City of Jackson did too, so in February of 1928, 151 acres of land were purchased for $53,500 (about $350 per acre) for the purpose of establishing Jackson’s first commercial airport.

Delta Airlines, then known as Delta Air Service and barely one year old (known not that long before as Huff-Daland Dusters, the world’s first aerial crop dusting organization, established in 1924), flew its inaugural flight into Hawkins Field over a route stretching from Dallas to Jackson via Shreveport and Monroe on June 17, 1929. With this flight, Jackson, Mississippi entered the modern age of air transportation.

Charles Lindbergh arrives at an unidentified airport (above), much as he may have arrived at Jackson's Hawkins Field in 1927.

Lindbergh landed at the airport on several occasions, including a visit during his USA tour following his historic 1927 trans-Atlantic flight from New York to Paris. Other celebrities would make use of the airfield over the years, from film star Mary Pickford (right) — she refused to leave the airplane at first...it came to light later that she had lost a shoe and was crawling around searching for it under the passenger seats! — to politicians Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

When the airfield was first constructed, like so many others of that time, it had runways paved in grass (above, left). The original runways, since replaced by longer ones paved in concrete, can still be seen in aerial photos of the field.

In June of 1941, during World War II, the airfield was designated as an Army Air Base, and later during the war became a training field for Dutch pilots of the Royal Netherlands Military Flying School, the Netherlands’ government then being in exile in London. The field continued in this capacity until February of 1944, when the lowering of the Dutch flag signified the end of this training program. A memorial to fallen Dutch flyers can be found at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in the vicinity of the air field off West Capitol Street.

The old terminal building, built by workers of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) in 1936, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal cultural program marking the U.S. government’s first big, direct investment in cultural development, served as the main aerial entrance to Jackson for almost 30 years, until the advent of jet air service that required longer runways than Hawkins Field had to offer.

Today, the old Terminal Building lies moldering, sadly neglected despite its most important role in Jackson’s transportation history.

In 2001, it was added to the Mississippi Heritage Trust’s list of the state’s Ten Most Endangered Historic Places. In spite of this recognition, vandalism and the elements have reduced this historic edifice to a dangerous shell of its former self, threatened with collapse as its structural integrity suffers.

Seven decades have passed since the inauguration of Hawkins Field and the construction of the Terminal Building on its south ramp. Perhaps soon, public and corporate awareness will focus on this historically important structure, and funds will be allocated towards its renovation and ultimate salvation.