Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport was a single-runway airport in Chicago that was in operation from 1948 to 2003, when it was bulldozed overnight by then-mayor Richard M. Daley. The airport was located on Northerly Island, an artificial peninsula on Lake Michigan adjacent to downtown Chicago, the second-largest business district in the Western Hemisphere. By 1955, Meigs Field had become the busiest single-strip airport in the United States. The airport was a familiar sight on the downtown lakefront. The latest air traffic tower was built in 1952, and the terminal was dedicated in 1961. The airfield was named for Merrill C. Meigs.
Meigs Field Airport alongside Burnham Harbor in 2002, a year before its demolition
Burnham's Plan of Chicago (1909). North is to the right.
Meigs Field Airport terminal building
Meigs Field Airport air traffic control tower
Richard Michael Daley is an American politician who served as the 54th mayor of Chicago, Illinois, from 1989 to 2011. Daley was elected mayor in 1989 and was reelected five times until declining to run for a seventh term. At 22 years, his was the longest tenure in Chicago mayoral history, surpassing the 21-year mayoralty of his father, Richard J. Daley.
Daley in 2006
Meigs Field Runway a few days after destruction ordered by Mayor Daley, April 2003
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley at the opening of the 2005 Revealing Chicago Exhibition in the Boeing Gallery and Chase Promenade in Millennium Park.
Chief of Staff of the United States Army Gen. George W. Casey, Jr. and Daley recite the Pledge of Allegiance during a wreath laying ceremony at
