‘Profile of Aviation’ tells about 50 airports in York and Adams counties
Post a blog item on York-area airports – operating and defunct – and people e-mail with fond memories.
There just seems to be pent-up interest in those old airstrips, perhaps because one has to squint to see where they once operated. And it’s fun to try to figure buildings standing today that were used for airport operations at one time.
If you want a full dose of all things about airports in York County, consult John F. M. Wolfe’s spiral-bound booklet “Profile of Aviation, York County, Pennsylvania,” first published in 1998.
There’s a non-circulating copy in the reference section of Martin Library.
Wolfe writes about approximately 50 airports in York and Adams counties.
Here is a summary of the York-area airports, as found in Wolfe’s useful and informative work:
York Airport, Fayfield: Founded: 1930; closed: 1937. Remaining building: Administration building converted into house, 7th Avenue and Haines Road.
Thomas Airport, Thomasville: Founded: 1939. Used privately and for storage and repair service when Roosevelt Avenue airport opened in 1946. Reopened for regular service: 1955.
York Airport, Roosevelt Avenue: Founded: 1946; closed, 1956. Remaining building: U-Haul rental business.
Valley Airways, East York, near present-day York Mall. Founded 1944; closed, 1949.
York Whitehull Airport, same location. Founded, 1949; closed, 1952. Remaining building: longtime Valley Canvas business.
Background posts: First York Airport’s administration building stands today and Just try to resist studying this memory-tugging photograph and U.S. 30 Drag-O-Way, Part III: ‘We would watch the dragsters on trailers head for Thomasville’
