Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Aviation History topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Short‑lived York airport hosted scheduled flights, a Goodyear blimp and Amelia Earhart, history night says
Summary
Presenter Stephen H. Smith recounted the brief commercial life of an early York airport (1930–1937), including scheduled flights to Philadelphia and New York, a Goodyear blimp visit, tests of an air‑mail pickup device and a November 1933 visit by Amelia Earhart.
Stephen H. Smith, chairman of the Springettsbury Township Historic Preservation Committee, summarized the history of the short‑lived York commercial airport and how its closure opened land for the later Fayfield housing development.
Smith said the York airport grew from an initial 40‑acre leased airfield into a larger commercial operation (roughly 157 acres after purchases) with scheduled passenger service beginning Oct. 15, 1930. Service included daily flights to Philadelphia (about 55 minutes for $8) and New York (about 1 hour 45 minutes for $14.40), and a two‑hour flight to Pittsburgh for $16.20, reflecting early passenger fares and aircraft capacity limits.
He described public events that underscored the airport’s role in local life: a Goodyear blimp (the Mayflower) landed on June 30, 1930, and the airport hosted demonstration flights and passenger rides; on Nov. 4, 1933, famed aviator Amelia Earhart visited the site and later spoke locally. Smith said passenger service proved short lived in the Depression and regular commercial flights ceased in 1932; by July 1937 the hangar was disassembled and its materials relocated to Piper Aircraft in Lock Haven.
Smith also explained the transition from aviation to housing: in July 1937 the York Airport Company investors voted to repurpose the site for real estate; after World War II the Fayfield development plan was promoted and gained planning commission approval in 1947, leading to postwar lot sales and new roadways.
Why it matters: the airport episode shows how short‑term commercial enterprises and broader economic factors (the Depression) reshaped local land use, contributing to mid‑20th‑century suburbanization in what is now parts of Springettsbury.
Smith invited residents with photographs or memorabilia from that era to share them with the committee for archival use.
