Spirit of St. Louis Airport

SP I R I T OF ST . LOUI S A I RPORT who worked for MacDonnell-Douglas in the late 1950s. “Paul was an avid pilot who flew his blue and white Cessna 195 out of Lambert Field,” Bales reports. “He’d sometimes have to wait for hours to depart, and saw the need for a new airport. There were a lot of small airports in the area but Paul envisioned a business aviation airport – image that in the late ‘50s! Way back then, he figured that business aviation was the wave of the future.” As the story goes, one day Haglin flew over Chesterfield Valley and spotted some property he thought was perfect. So he formed a land company and proceeded to negotiate with farmers and landowners to buy the acreage. At the time, some of the property was purchased outright and some was acquired under 99-year land leases. Then construction began and the new airport opened in 1964 with Paul Haglin landing the first aircraft. A newspaper article in 1965 stated that Spirit had a 5100 ft. runway and was the largest privately-owned airport in maintain world-class aviation support services, combined with “down home” Midwest hospitality and first-class professional facilities and personnel, including four full-service Phillips Aviation Performance Centers (APCs). A 7,485 foot all weather runway, 5,000 foot parallel runway, precision approaches, FAA Control Tower, and 24- hour Customs Services are all available onsite. Funding for the airport comes from revenue generated through wholesale fuel sales, land development, and real estate rental. With an annual economic impact of $400 million on the surrounding community, Spirit continues to be self-supporting and profitable – re-investing profits into its operations to improve facilities and promote the growth of aviation in the St. Louis region, as well as non-aviation businesses in the community at large. According to John D. Bales, Spirit of St. Louis Airport’s Director of Aviation, the airport was the vision of Paul Haglin, an aerospace engineer