Growing up in Indianapolis in the fifties, my dad would often take me and my brothers to Weir Cook Airport to watch the planes take off and land. At that time there was an open-air observation deck that extended from the terminal, and you could leisurely walk out onto it and watch passengers getting on or off planes (this was before the enclosed ramps) and take in the other sights of the airport. Closer to our eastside home was Sky Harbor Airport and we sometimes would drive out to it to see the small planes — Piper Cubs and Cessnas. This was a time before the strict security of today’s airports when one could get close to the aircraft and let the senses take in all that was aviation of that era.
Thirty or more years earlier, what would pass as airports in and around Indianapolis were little more than grassy fields, with little infrastructure, that would be sufficient for the take-offs and landings of small planes. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Aerodrome, located on the infield of the racetrack, was the earliest airfield in Marion County. It later served as a U. S. Army Aviation Repair Depot during World War I where the 809th, 810th, 811th, and 821st Aero Squadrons repaired and tested training aircraft and engines. About eighteen months after the depot closed, Schoen Field at Ft. Benjamin Harrison was dedicated on May 7, 1922. Named for Indianapolis native First Lieutenant Karl J. Schoen, an army aviator killed in action over France, the 100-acre field was a piece of ground lying west of Post Rd. along the north side of the adjacent railroad. Five new steel hangars housed a dozen or more planes and machine shops were available to service them.
Also, during the spring of 1922, the Aero Club of Indianapolis announced plans to establish a flying field near Indianapolis for the use of its members and for commercial purposes. With the backing of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, a 110-acre site along the north side of the National Road and extending to Tenth St, between Franklin and Post roads was leased. The new aerodrome opened on May 29, 1922, with a special Aviation Day celebration featuring the first delivery of mail to the city by a fleet of eight planes from Chicago. Over two hundred visitors took the opportunity to take a ride in an airplane; the two Dayton-Wright Chummys proved popular because the passenger is seated next to the pilot, instead of in the back seat alone. Unfortunately, this airport like one or two other private fields soon became only a memory. The Aero Club’s flying field, however, in its short life had shown the potential commercial benefits that aviation could provide for the city.
By the mid-twenties, commercial airlines were laying out routes across the United States, and the Indianapolis Real Estate Board and the Indianapolis News, along with members of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, advocated for the development of a municipal airport so the city would become “a center of air transportation, as it has become a center of interurban and steam transportation lines.” In the fall of 1926, the Indianapolis Airport Corporation leased 234 acres “of level ground at Mars Hill,” bounded on the east by Holt Rd. and lying between Minnesota St. on the north and Raymond St. on the south. Once the corn had been harvested and “150 bushels of tomatoes” were picked, the land was rolled, planted with grass seed, and two national guard hangars that had been moved from Kokomo were erected. Initially called the Indianapolis Airport Corporation Airfield, management and operation was placed under the authority of the 113th Observation Squadron, Indiana National Guard. The name was later changed to Stout-Cox Airfield in honor of World War I aviators Richard Harding Stout and Linton A. Cox, Jr. Stout was an officer in the 113th Observation Squadron who had been killed in a flying accident at Ft. Harrison in October 1926 and Cox died in an automobile accident while on his way to the Dayton, Ohio air races in October 1924. Captain Eddie Rickenbacker suggested the name of Cox because he was one of the early visionaries to see the need for an adequate airport for Indianapolis. Within a short time, the airport became known just as “Stout Field.”
In the fall of 1928, the Indiana National Guard exercised its options and took control of Stout Field. Anticipating this development, months earlier an airport board, appointed by Mayor L. Ert Slack, and the city Chamber of Commerce began looking at potential sites near the Mars Hill airfield for a municipal airport. Experts recommended the airport should be located “as close to the center of the city as possible,” without being in the path of its growth, and with good roads leading to it and reliable public transportation. “There should be open fields around the airport where an emergency landing can be made in case of motor failure on taking off.”
After examining over 40 sites, a tract containing 1,000 acres northwest of Ben Davis, in Wayne Township, was recommended for the new Indianapolis Municipal Airport. When completed, aeronautical experts declared the airport “one of the world’s most excellently equipped ports.” Activities leading up to the formal dedication of the city’s new commercial airport on Sunday, September 27, 1931 began two days earlier with an automobile parade through downtown streets led by the American Legion drum and bugle corps of Miami, Florida and then continued with aerobatic contests, parachute jumps, and airplane races at the airport. Saturday, Army, Navy and Marine Day, saw 150 military planes roar over Indianapolis enroute to the airport where they swept over the airfield “in elaborate stunts and in pursuit and observation formation.” Among the aviators attending the dedication was Major Jimmie Doolittle who set a record flying time of 57 minutes from St. Louis to Indianapolis and stunt flyer Dorothy Hester of Portland, Oregon.
Large crowds attended the daily events proceeding Dedication Sunday, and on that day thousands of persons witnessed the activities. Cars “lined up around homes surrounding the airport and many persons stood in the nearby fields.” The first plane to take off from the new city airfield was the Fairchild City of Indianapolis with four women passengers. The Central Aeronautical Corp. hauled passengers in their big Stinson cabin plane while crowds were treated to an air show of plane races and parachute jumps. All eyes though were on Maj. Doolittle in his famous Laird snub-nosed little biplane as he “sailed off the runway as if he had been shot out of a gun, circled, and then streaking back across the field with the throttle wide open, and about two seconds later was nothing but a little dot in the clouds” as he headed northwest for Chicago. When the day’s events were over, the National Road was congested with automobiles three and four abreast heading back to the city.
In December 1943, the Indianapolis Municipal Airport was renamed Weir Cook Indianapolis Municipal Airport in honor of World War I fighter ace Colonel Harvey Weir Cook who was killed while serving in the Pacific during World War II.
