I’ll admit it – I’m kind of a nerd about aviation history. So when I found out there’s an airport in Maryland that’s been operating since 1909, I had to dig into the story. Turns out College Park Airport isn’t just old – it’s basically where modern aviation learned to walk.
Here’s the wild part: before there were airports, pilots just… landed wherever they could find flat ground. A farmer’s field. A beach. Whatever worked. The idea of a dedicated place for airplanes was brand new, and College Park was one of the first spots to make it official.
Why Maryland?
Wilbur Wright needed somewhere to teach military officers how to fly, and the location had to be close to Washington D.C. so government officials could keep an eye on things. College Park fit the bill – close enough for oversight, flat enough for early aircraft, and just the right amount of “let’s see if this flying thing actually works.”
That was 1909. The Wright brothers were still basically celebrities experimenting with machines that most people thought would never amount to much. And yet here was the U.S. military, investing in flight training. Bold move.
Some Pretty Incredible Firsts Happened Here
The more I looked into it, the more I realized how much happened at this one little airfield:
In 1910, a woman named Helen Dutrieu became the first woman to fly as a passenger in an airplane here. Imagine being the first woman to ever experience flight. What a moment.
By 1911, they were testing airmail service – the first time anyone tried using planes to deliver letters. We take overnight shipping for granted now, but this was the very beginning of that idea.
Then there were the technological experiments. First aircraft parachute test. First controlled helicopter flight (Emile Berliner, 1924). Development of blind landing systems. All at this same field in Maryland.
From Grass Strips to What We Know Today
Early airports were basically just fields with some cleared space. Grass runways, maybe a tent or two, not much else. But as planes got bigger and air travel got more popular, airports had to grow up too.
Paved runways replaced grass. Terminals went up so passengers had somewhere to wait. Hangars, control towers, maintenance facilities – the whole infrastructure we associate with airports today didn’t exist yet. It all had to be invented, piece by piece.
College Park evolved too, though it stayed relatively small while other airports exploded in size. Now it’s primarily used for recreational flying – small planes, flight training, hobbyists. The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission runs it, and there’s a museum on site preserving all that history.
Why This Matters
I think there’s something special about standing in a place where things really started. Global air travel connects billions of people every year now. Packages arrive overnight from across the country. None of that happens without someone, somewhere, figuring out the basics first.
College Park is where a lot of those basics got figured out. It’s not the biggest airport or the fanciest. But it’s where the dream of flight stopped being a dream and started being real.
If you’re ever near D.C. and have a few hours to spare, it’s worth a visit. Walk the same ground where Wilbur Wright trained pilots over a century ago. Check out the museum. And maybe think about how far we’ve come since then – all starting from a little airfield in Maryland where people were just crazy enough to believe humans could fly.
