History
During World War II, Charleston's airport at that time, Wertz Field, closed when the airport's approaches were blocked once the federal government built a synthetic rubber plant next to the airport; this left the city without an airport. However, there were plans before the war to build a new Charleston airport, as Wertz Field was already becoming commercially obsolete.
The city started construction of its new airport in 1944; the facility opened in 1947 as Kanawha Airport. A terminal building was built in 1950 and was designed by Tucker & Silling. The airport received its current name in 1985, honoring then-Brigadier General Chuck Yeager, a native of nearby Lincoln County who piloted the world's first supersonic flight in the Bell X-1. In 1986, the terminal facilities were completely renovated. Concourse C, which was designed by L. Robert Kimball and Associates and cost $2.8 million, was completed in 2001, some three months ahead of schedule.
On February 27, 2008, Yeager's Governing Board voted to close the secondary runway, Rwy 15/33, to allow for the construction of two new hangars and additional ramp space for four additional C-130s to be based at the Air National Guard facility. It will allow the airport to triple the general aviation area's hangar space and create room for off-runway businesses, and provide parking for up to ten additional commercial airliners. 5 million dollars were given to the airport to build a canopy around the front of the terminal. Also, and additional 2 million have been given to create a covered walk-way from the main terminal to the airports parking garage.
Read more about this topic: Yeager Airport
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will, used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was created to fill. He has done all he could to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and say, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“... in a history of spiritual rupture, a social compact built on fantasy and collective secrets, poetry becomes more necessary than ever: it keeps the underground aquifers flowing; it is the liquid voice that can wear through stone.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)