Meigs Field

Merrill C. Meigs Field Airport (ICAO: KCGX) was a single runway airport in Chicago which was in operation from December 1948 until March 2003, on Northerly Island, an artificial peninsula on Lake Michigan. Northerly Island was also the site of the Century of Progress (1933–34) in Chicago. The airport sat adjacent to downtown Chicago, the second largest business district in North America. Meigs Field airport was closed when the then-mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, ordered the runway destroyed, with bulldozers, without the thirty-day notice required by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations.

Meigs Field airport was opened on 10 December 1948, and, by 1955, had become the busiest single-strip airport in the United States. The latest air traffic tower was built in 1952 and the terminal was dedicated in 1961. The airfield was named for Merrill C. Meigs, publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and an aviation advocate.

Northerly Island, owned by the Chicago Park District, is the only lakefront structure to be built based on Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago. The island was to be populated by trees and grass for the public enjoyment by all.

The airport was a familiar sight on the downtown lakefront. It was also well known as the default takeoff field in many early versions of the popular Microsoft Flight Simulator software program. It is an airport that is featured in Microsoft's Midtown Madness computer game (1999) and Reflections' Driver 2 video game, which are based in Chicago. The airport area is also the central location of the short documentary film Powers of Ten by Charles and Ray Eames.

...
Wikipedia