Business View Magazine | November 2019

126 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2019 Airport Connellsville Airport also served as the site of a Taylorcraft airplane maintenance facility where Taylorcraft airplanes were built and/ or repaired in the late 1940s and 1950s. The current main terminal site is the remnants of the Taylorcraft hangar. The United States Marine Corps (USMC) Reserve also had training areas on the Airport in the 1950s. By the 1960s, the Connellsville Airport had three paved runways, one of approximately 3,400 feet and the other two at 3,000 feet. Of those three, only two survive today. The Fayette County Airport Authority (FCAA) was established in December 1965 to take ownership and management of the facility. The Airport fell into relative disrepair in the 1980s and 1990s due to poor pilot usage and lack of operating funds. However, over the past several years, it has bounced back. In 2007, it was renamed the Joseph A. Hardy Connellsville Airport, in honor of lumber magnate, Joseph A. Hardy, who donated $1 million to help defray the $2.3 million cost of building new hangars. “We wouldn’t be where we’re at right now, if it wasn’t for