Scholes International Airport is the former Galveston Municipal Airport that dates back to 1931. It was renamed Corrigan Airport in 1938 for Douglas Wrong Way Corrigan, a Galveston native, who worked at Ryan Aeronautical Company and helped to build Charles Lindberghs Spirit of St. Louis. Later he piloted his own 1929 Curtiss Robin OX-5 monoplane named Sunshine from Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, to Ireland allegedly due to a compass error after being denied permission to fly that same trans-Atlantic route by the U.S. Bureau of Air Commerce many times before. This incident earned him his nickname. During World War II, it was redesignated a U.S. Army Air Corps base and named Galveston Army Air Field, United States Army Corps of Engineers, using funds made available by Congress through the Civil Aeronautics Authority, constructed three 6,000-foot (1,800 m)-long, hard-surface runways at the airport to accommodate army aircraft. In January 1943, Galveston AAFld. was officially activated had the 46th Bombardment Group flying the Douglas A-20 Havoc in the anti-submarine role in the Gulf of Mexico until replaced by the 10th Antisubmarine Squadron, flying RM-37 Lockheed Venturas. The Field was primarily used for replacement crew gunnery training by the 407th Fighter-Bomber Group, with targets being towed to the gunnery range at nearby Oyster Bay. The installation cost $7 million and at its peak had some 2,500 personnel assigned. It was officially deactivated on November 15, 1945, with ownership reverting to the City of Galveston. The existing terminal was completed in 1949 and renamed Scholes Field in honor of Airport Manager and aviation pioneer, Robert Scholes. As late as 1948, it was an active seaplane base per Sectional Aeronautical chart SA SAC O-5.
Posted on: Tue, 20 May 2014 16:56:26 +0000
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