Bader Field - The World's First "Airport"

It's a word that we're all quite familiar with these days. For some it stirs up stressful thoughts of rushed traveling, or that local annoyance that causes so much noise, or for people like me its a place where magic happens. It's the "Airport."

However, in the early days of aviation there was no such place. Sure, there were "airfields" or "flying fields." Grass or dirt runways (they'd eventually get around to paving them) where the early flying machines pushed the boundaries of engineering and piloting and we learned how to fly and how it could be useful. But they were always called "fields." That is, until an airport located just one mile from the boardwalk of Atlantic City called Bader Field declared itself an "Air Port." And why not? Ships had sailed from seaports for centuries! Well a port is a port, whether it leads to the sea or sky. So if you leave for the sea from a seaport you must leave for the air from an airport.

Side note: I think it would have been pretty cool to call it a "skyport" as well but hey "airport" ain't so bad.

It is well established that the word "airport" stuck quickly when the flying field, first opened by private owners, was purchased by the city of Atlantic City and became a municipal airport in 1919. However, there's no real consensus about who actually first coined the term. Some credit Italian-born aviation enthusiast Henry Woodhouse who had been involved in forming the Atlantic City Aero Club and helped organize one of the first public aerial demonstrations in 1910. Others credit a "local newsman," as he is repeatedly titled in references, Robert Woodhouse. I haven't had much luck yet in finding biographical information about him that would clear up which Woodhouse is more likely to have coined the term. Lastly, another "newsman," William B. Dill who was the editor of The Press of Atlantic City is also given some credit for the phrase "airport." At some point I'd like to look into the old issues of the area newspapers to find the earliest mentions of the term, but that's something for the future.


The fact that this airport was the first to be called an airport may indeed be a trivial fact (I've been known to obsess over trivia), but here are several other facts about Bader Field that are quite significant in aviation history and require further, more detailed entries on this blog in the future:

• In 1931, WWI Ace Eddie Rickenbacker, pioneer of transatlantic flight Charles Lindbergh, and women's aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart all came together here in 1931 for a celebration of the naming of Eastern Airlines as the primary operator of Bader Field. Rickenbacker was the head of Eastern Airlines at the time.

• Also in 1931, William G. Swan made the world's first rocket-powered flight (albeit in a glider) in a stunt to promote the Steel Pier. 

• In 1941 the Civil Air Patrol was founded here because the airport was located essentially at the beach and it was an ideal location for civilian aircraft to patrol the Atlantic coast in search of German U-boats.

• On May 15th, 2005 a Cessna CitationJet, tail registration OY-JET, attempted to land at Bader Field and while landing too quickly, downwind, at an airfield closed to jet traffic the plane went off the runway and into the water! Do yourself a favor and watch this video!

This entry will definitely be expanded upon in the near future. My plan for this weekend had been to continue exploring the ruins of Millville and post my findings but with the cold rainy day that showed up I diverted to plan B, so this entry was somewhat last-minute. Bader Field, which sadly closed in 2006, has many more stories to tell and I'll happily help tell them...as long as YOU want to read them.