Smith Field: Fort Wayne's first municipal airport

Smith Field is one of the oldest surviving aviation sites in America and served as Fort Wayne's first municipal airport. Commissioned as the Paul Baer Municipal Airport on June 25, 1925, it became a hub for commercial airmail and passenger service in the early 1930s, serving nearly 3,000 passengers in 1932.

During the Great Depression, the airport received significant upgrades funded by New Deal programs. In 1933, the Civil Works Administration funded over 13,000 man-hours of labor for drainage, lighting, and flowerbeds. By 1936, the Works Progress Administration funded further concrete pavement and radio communication equipment, making it one of the largest WPA projects in Indiana.

The field hosted famous aviators such as Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and General Jimmy Doolittle. In 1940, as the U.S. War Department sought to establish a military base in Fort Wayne, local businessmen raised $125,000 to purchase 700 acres of land. To ensure the existing municipal airport remained a civil facility, the new military base was named Baer Field, and the existing airport was renamed Smith Field in honor of Fort Wayne native Art Smith.

Today, Smith Field remains a general aviation airport and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The site currently offers aviation instruction and plane rental, and a memorandum of understanding was signed in 2024 to lease Hangar 2 for a National Airmail Museum.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons