Livonia Airfield? Plymouth and Middlebelt.

[gnome]

Met a guy today who's grandfather owned the place, but alas he couldn't remember the name of the airfield nor does he have any pix of the place.

it was located at Plymouth and middlebelt roads and was in operation until Al Taubman built Wonderland Mall there. I would guess it was a working airfield from the early 1930s until the late 50s.

thought I would ask the collective brain trust here.

thanx.

[DetroitPlanner]

Wilson was the name of the farmer that owned all of the land in that area. One of his barns still exists just S of this site.

Taubman developed Wonderland? Was he 20? Can you provide documentation of this?

[48217]

Ira Wilson, Dairy Farm

[Scottathew]

Here it is in 1949:

http://oi42.tinypic.com/egsg7t.jpg [[Higher res at the link)

[EastsideAl]

According to MikeM's post on this thread it was known, believe it or not, as "National Airport."

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1151583808

[Patrick]

Why can I never load those vintage aerial maps using IE? How do I load em?

[Scottathew]

Why can I never load those vintage aerial maps using IE? How do I load em?

Try downloading the master PDF [[the one that links to all the others ones) and open it using Adobe Reader [[not the IE plugin).

I've found it won't work in Chrome's PDF viewer.

I was able to get it to work from Windows 8 \ IE10.

[yaktown]

According to MikeM's post on this thread it was known, believe it or not, as "National Airport."

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1151583808

Nope, it's not National Airport. National used to be called Hartsell Air Terminal and was located at the SE corner of Ford/Lotz Roads. Here's a link to that: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/MI/...Detroit_S.html I'm not sure what the airstrip at Plymouth/Middlebelt was ever called, I'll keep looking for info.

[EastsideAl]

Apparently the airport was known as National Airways Airport.

Here it is on a map from 1936:



And here is a picture of it, showing some planes, a hanger, and an old farmhouse, from David MacGregor's Arcadia history book on Livonia:

http://books.google.com/books?id=mxJBJYzdBHAC&pg=PA64&lpg=PA64&dq=national +airways+livonia&source=bl&ots=uFkYlIm2e_&sig=Gd4w IzjRCl0-OdKYR9cgREadnrc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=haAZUofXFrTd4AOC64DQ Dg&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=national%20airways% 20livonia&f=false

The airport's hanger can also be seen in the background of this picture of the dedication of the still-standing Ford facility across Plymouth Rd.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kbreenb...ream/lightbox/

[sumas]

I am always amazed at the collective memory on this forum.

[gnome]

Wow, thanks guys. I will pass your information of to the guy. He is the Service Manager at a automotive dealership where I was getting some work done and we were shooting the breeze about how family histories get lost in the mists of time.

Also, I notice in EastsideAl's map pic that Plymouth Rd is designated "12"! I thought Michigan Ave was and is 12. ...?

[jcole]

From Wikipedia:

Prior to 1956, the Detroit-Ann Arbor segment of US 12 was routed directly through Ann Arbor, through Plymouth Township, Livonia, and Redford Township, into Detroit, along the Plymouth-Ann Arbor Road corridor to Plymouth Road's eastern terminus at US 16, Grand River Avenue. US 12 continued on Grand River Avenue, co-signed with US 16, into downtown Detroit. Except for the co-signed Grand River Avenue segment, this route was designated as M-14 when US 12 was rerouted to the Detroit Industrial and Willow Run Expressways, most of which became I-94 in 1962.

[DetroitPlanner]

Wow, thanks guys. I will pass your information of to the guy. He is the Service Manager at a automotive dealership where I was getting some work done and we were shooting the breeze about how family histories get lost in the mists of time.

Also, I notice in EastsideAl's map pic that Plymouth Rd is designated "12"! I thought Michigan Ave was and is 12. ...?

Michigan was US-112 at the time.
http://michiganhighways.org/listings/US-012.html

[MikeM]

Nope, it's not National Airport. National used to be called Hartsell Air Terminal and was located at the SE corner of Ford/Lotz Roads. Here's a link to that: http://www.airfields-freeman.com/MI/...Detroit_S.html I'm not sure what the airstrip at Plymouth/Middlebelt was ever called, I'll keep looking for info.

The airport in question - the one where Wonderland Mall was built - was named National on aeronautical charts from at least 1946. Here's a link to a clip of the 1946 chart I posted on another thread. You can see Hartsell is farther west, on Ford Road, as you indicated.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4029/...cceb4f28_o.jpg


The Old Car Factories thread [[p. 17) had this picture of the Ford warehouse, date unknown, with the airport buildings in the foreground. Why the grounds were filled with buses, I don't know.

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/65117.jpg

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/65319.jpg

[Richard]

The Old Car Factories thread [[p. 17) had this picture of the Ford warehouse, date unknown, with the airport buildings in the foreground. Why the grounds were filled with buses, I don't know.

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/65117.jpg

http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/6790/65319.jpg

Do you think the buses are staged to replace the street cars?

or wrong time frame?

[Lily]

Thank you ESA for the map. This thread brings back so many memories. The airport was a bit before my time, but i remember hearing about it from my parents. Do remember a bar with an airplane in the lot, on Plymouth, between Beech Daly and Telegraph, called Lee's Airport Bar. Still there, been through many owners, but its a place my folks went to and i heard all about the cool plane pictures on the walls. Lots of fond memories from post airport, pre Wonderland....they are vague but since the threa started, i am remembering a few things from then I'll end with, remembering my dad taking me on sunday drives, to somewhere near the old old burroughs plant further west on Plymouth and there being "danger quicksand" signs. [[ lol)

thanks for the walk down memory lane everyone participating in this thread.

lily

[MikeM]

Do you think the buses are staged to replace the street cars?

or wrong time frame?

Time seems right, but I thought maybe they were older buses parked there in storage until they were disposed of.

[Hermod]

It looks like some sort of charter bus operation. Note the garage next to the house with a bus sticking out like it was the maintenance facility for the bus operation.

[Lily]

Thank you ESA for the map. This thread brings back so many memories. The airport was a bit before my time, but i remember hearing about it from my parents. Do remember a bar with an airplane in the lot, on Plymouth, between Beech Daly and Telegraph, called Lee's Airport Bar. Still there, been through many owners, but its a place my folks went to and i heard all about the cool plane pictures on the walls. Lots of fond memories from post airport, pre Wonderland....they are vague but since the threa started, i am remembering a few things from then I'll end with, remembering my dad taking me on sunday drives, to somewhere near the old old burroughs plant further west on Plymouth and there being "danger quicksand" signs. [[ lol)

thanks for the walk down memory lane everyone participating in this thread.

lily

Tappers....thats the current name of the old original bar east of the airport. Originally known as Lee's Airport lounge. Had a plane in the lot and many original photos from the airport on the walls. No idea if photos are still there though.

[DetroitPlanner]

It looks like some sort of charter bus operation. Note the garage next to the house with a bus sticking out like it was the maintenance facility for the bus operation.

Could be providing service for workers in the parts depot too. Not too many homes out that far in those days.

[56packman]

Wonderland would not have been built by Al Taubman, as others have made obvious, he was too young to have developed that mall. I know from personal experience working for his President/CEO of Taubman that they did not develop their own large shopping center until the late 60s. They were the general contractor for the Macomb Mall--they bid on two projects that went up at the same time, the Livonia Mall and the Macomb Mall and they won the contract for the Macomb mall, that was 1963. It was a huge step for them, and led to their becoming the developer of large indoor malls later. They went at a breakneck pack in the 70s, in a ten year period they built 50 large shopping centers across the United States. Lakeside, Fairlane, Twleve Oaks and Briarwood are their Detroit area projects, the Meridian Mall in East Lansing and the Greenwood Mall in GR are but a few of those 50 projects.

[Smirnoff]

Thank you ESA for the map. This thread brings back so many memories. The airport was a bit before my time, but i remember hearing about it from my parents. Do remember a bar with an airplane in the lot, on Plymouth, between Beech Daly and Telegraph, called Lee's Airport Bar. Still there, been through many owners, but its a place my folks went to and i heard all about the cool plane pictures on the walls. Lots of fond memories from post airport, pre Wonderland....they are vague but since the threa started, i am remembering a few things from then I'll end with, remembering my dad taking me on sunday drives, to somewhere near the old old burroughs plant further west on Plymouth and there being "danger quicksand" signs. [[ lol)

thanks for the walk down memory lane everyone participating in this thread.

lily

There was also an airport on Plymouth Rd across the street from Lee's.....

[Smirnoff]

There was also an airport on Plymouth Rd across the street from Lee's.....

BTW: the name of the airport was Burns.

[Lily]

BTW: the name of the airport was Burns.

Wow! I am going to make it a point to drive by there over the weekend. Cant think of what would have been across from the bar.......closer to Beech there is/was Harry j. Will & Son Funeral Home, then the cemetery, then i think there was a coal company......
maybe called Koenigs. I was raised in South Redford, close to Beech Daly, but my memory from the mid 50's to the 60's is a bit on the vague side

Another airport ...... Wow, thanks Smirnoff. Off to investigate.

[Sheena1]

Anyone remember the 'concrete bridges' at Wonderland in the early 60's. We used to play on them as kids while mom shopped.