Business View Magazine | October 2019

157 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2019 HURON REGIONAL A I RPORT was the hub of aviation for the whole state of South Dakota. This was even before Sioux Falls had an airport of its own. During the 1940s, it became a service hub with a carrier out of Rapid City known as Mid Continent Airlines. “Mid Continent was an early carrier,” Cooper recounts, “and at one point, we had more than 15,000 boardings. We had more service, more carriers - three carriers, at one time, serving the Airport. We have had several different FBOs over the course of the years, and all in all, this had been a premier airport for several years.” “Deregulation really hit the Airport hard,” Cooper admits. “We lost all of our service with Republic Airlines in 1970. We had just increased our runways to accommodate Republic and Northwest flying DC9s in here, and it all fell apart. Up until this time, we were still boarding 15,000 people a year and we were a growing city. Flights out went to Chicago, Kansas City, North Dakota, and west to Rapid City. When Republic Airlines left, we had a stream of carriers. Northern Airlines, which lasted a few weeks, was replaced by MESABA,