Business View Magazine | March 2020

188 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MARCH 2020 HAGERSTOWN REGIONAL AIRPORT H agerstown Regional Airport, also known as Richard A. Henson Field, is a public- use, publicly-owned facility, located in Washington County, Maryland, five miles north of the City of Hagerstown, and a half mile from the Maryland/Pennsylvania border. The airfield opened in 1928 on 60 acres of farmland purchased by the Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company. In 1929, Kreider-Reisner was bought by the Fairchild Aviation Corporation, the first U.S. aircraft manufacturer to produce a plane with a fully enclosed cockpit and hydraulic landing gear. The company moved its operations to Hagerstown in 1931, and built a factory there, which went on to produce PT-19 trainers and C-82 Packet transport aircraft for use in World War II. By the time Fairchild shut down its Hagerstown plant in 1984, it had built over 10,000 aircraft. In 1933, the City of Hagerstown purchased the airport land from the Fairchild Aviation Corporation, and the official dedication of the Hagerstown Municipal Airport took place on A STORIED HISTORY