On March 31st, 2003 at about 1:30 a.m., construction workers under direction from Chicago’s Mayor Richard M. Daley arrived and destroyed the runway at Chicago Meigs using bulldozers to gouge large X shapes onto the runway surface, rendering it unusable for airplanes, which included sixteen aircraft parked there.
The Mayor’s intention to close Chicago Meigs Field as an airport dates back to 1994 when he announced plans to use the site as a park.
Chicago Meigs airport located on Northerly Island, leased the land from the Chicago Park District. In 1996 when the lease expired the Park District refused to renew it causing the airport to be closed by the city between October and February 1997, when pressure from state legislature persuaded the city to allow the airport to be reopened.
Inside the former Chicago Meigs Field terminal building is a wall plague:
On July 1, 1913
The First Flight Across Lake Michigan
From St. Joseph, Michigan To Chicago, Illinois
Was Completed By
Jack Vilas
To Record This Milestone In Aviation History
This Tablet Is Placed By The Chicago Aero Commision
July, 1951
First Flight Across Lake Michigan
With only six weeks flight instruction, on the 1st July 1913 pilot Jack Vilas took off from the Silver Beach Amusement Park in St. Joseph, Michigan and flew the 64 miles over water flight, completing the first flight across Lake Michigan, with a landing at Grant Park, Chicago.
With no compass on board the airplane Vilas followed a lake steamer boat, before flying towards the smoke of the Gary steel mills, in Gary Illinois.
On the flight was a passenger, Will Bastar from Benton Harbor.
Jack Vilas
Jack Vilas (actually Logan Archbold Vilas) from Chicago, was born May 25th, 1891.
He received pilot’s license #6 on June 25, 1913 from the Aero Club of America, therefore becoming a member of the Early Birds of Aviation (for piloting an airplane before December 17, 1916).
Jack Vilas died May 15th, 1976 in Bonita Springs, Florida.
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