Arlington's Airports

Hoover Airport Image courtesy  ACPL Archives

Across Military Road, on the site of a former racetrack, a second privately owned commercial airport was established in 1928, known as Washington Airport. When the collocation of two airports split by a single road proved to be too hazardous, the sites were consolidated and named Washington Municipal Airport. Conditions remained hazardous for automobiles and pedestrians, however, as Military Road ran through the combined space and the airport’s larger runway crossed the road. When sirens and signal lights failed to alert drivers, the Sheriff dispatched armed deputies who chained the road closed. As aircraft capabilities mushroomed, Washington Municipal Airport became impossibly constricted; nevertheless, it was Washington’s only airport until the opening of National Airport at Gravelly Point in 1941.

National Airport Photo courtesy ACPL Archives, Samuel Milner Papers

As World War II loomed on the horizon, the pressure to build a new federal airport grew increasingly stronger. Gravelly Point was selected as the site; located on the Virginia side of the Potomac about halfway between the Fourteenth Street Bridge and Alexandria, it was easily accessible by the Mount Vernon Parkway and U.S. Route 1. To avoid large-scale acquisition of developed areas, land was created out of the extensive fill of the Potomac River bottom meadows. An encircling levee was built, water and mud were removed, and sand and gravel were pumped into the area from the riverbed, creating the land for the site. Washington National Airport opened five months before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.