Love Field

Love Field's armistice celebration was enormous. On November 12 and 13, 1918, the Flyin' Frolic drew an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 people to what was heralded as the first officially recognized air circus in the United States, with a staged bombing raid, a world-record parachute leap and sixty planes in the air at once. On November 29, 1949, American Airlines Flight 157, a DC-6, slid off Runway 36 and struck buildings and a parked aircraft, killing twenty-eight. The terminal that opened in 1958 boasted the world's first airport moving walkways.

What the plaque says

Love Field Love Field Believing the city's success was linked to its transportation system, Dallas leaders made early efforts to secure a future within the burgeoning field of aviation. Oak Cliff resident Frank McCarroll made his first flight in 1903. In 1910, he and the Dallas Chamber of Commerce organized a State Fair air show and attracted thousands of viewers. In 1917, during World War I, the city secured an agreement with the War Department to provide a military flying school for the army to lease. The Army Signal Corps named the field "Love Field" in honor of Lt. Moss Lee Love (1879-1913), an Army aviation fatality. A festival at Love Field marked the war's end in 1918, and the Army decommissioned the flying school in 1920. The City of Dallas leased space to pilots and, in 1922, the Curtiss Flying School and Curtiss Aeroplane Co. opened at the field. In 1923, the Army returned to provide weather and radio service to pilots. The airport attracted U.S. air mail route service in the mid-1920s; air mail carriers were the first national air service companies, and many developed into the major air carriers of the late 20th century. Over the years, notable pilots made stops here, including Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. During World War II, the 5th Ferrying Group based operations here, along with a contingent of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) and a large Lockheed modification center. As Love Field developed, so did aircraft technology and services, and major carriers established offices at its facilities. In 1973, a larger airport opened with most area air traffic moving there; Love Field almost closed. Today, though, Love Field has grown into a significant facility and one of the busiest commercial and general aviation airports in the United States. It remains a valuable Dallas asset, serving scheduled passengers, corporate clients and maintenance business. It is an important reminder of the city's early aviation efforts. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 4.6 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 4.8 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 5.8 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 6.4 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Texas' First Airmail and Passenger Service — steps away
• Oath of Office of President Johnson — steps away
• Garvin Memorial Cemetery — 1.5 mi
• Cochran Chapel Cemetery — 1.5 mi