The impression that 195 acres of dry land (plus 295 acres underwater) that D.O. Mills had purchased in the 1860s might be donated to the city of San Francisco for use as an airport was shattered when Mills’ son Ogden died before completing the deal.
His heir, Ogden L. Mills, Jr., was skeptical of the newfangled airplane fad, but agreed to rent the land (starting March 1927) for $1,500 per year with a three-year lease, provided the land was left usable and fit for pasturage for his dairy cows when the lease was terminated.
Many other sites had been considered, such as Crissy Field and the Marina District in San Francisco, San Mateo Point and South San Francisco to name a few, as well as possibly building wooden runways on the waterfront, but all were rejected due to unfavorable water conditions, fog or lack of expansion potential. The San Bruno area had developed a tradition of air pioneering since the 1860s when, 35 years before the Wright brothers made their 1903 flight, the “Avitor,” a kind of dirigible, took to the sky with the aid of a steam engine for a maiden flight. This took place at a private race track on the Easton Estate in the present-day Burlingame area (Broadway and California Drive?), and, although the “aeroplane “reached speeds of only 5 mph, it nevertheless flew for a complete mile. It was destroyed in a fire later before it could be flown again. In 1908, the state of California outlawed betting at the race tracks. This put a halt to horse racing at Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno. Alternative activities had to be explored for the use of the land. Luckily, a new invention, the airplane, was being developed. In 1910, the first airplane in northern California was flown here. Louis Paulham made the first extended air flight on the West Coast, taking off from the Tanforan race track and flying for eight minutes, reached altitudes of more tan 700 feet. During a 1911 air show, Lt. Crissy successfully released a 6-pound bomb on to the future Mills Field from a Wright biplane piloted by Philip Parmelee. It created a 3-foot by 2-foot hole in the mud.
On Jan. 15, 1911, Eugene Ely successfully took off from Tanforan and landed on a 30-foot by 130-foot plank platform on the armored cruiser U.S.S. Pennsylvania, which was anchored near the center of the Bay by Alameda. The U.S.S. Pennsylvania was sister ship to the U.S.S. California. The forward momentum of the Curtiss biplane landing was stopped by ropes strung across the planks with sacks of sand tied to the end of the ropes. This was a crude method of stopping the plane, but it proved effective.
In the early 1920s, the Mills’ pasture was used occasionally for landings and takeoffs, but it became imperative to buy land for an airport when Congress passed the Kelly Bill in 1924 which allowed for the contracting of private companies to carry the U.S. mail. San Francisco had to provide a dependable airfield or be left out of the race to become a first-class city. It was estimated that at least $350,000 would be needed for a 9,000-foot runway, buildings, lighting, a meteorological station, etc., but the supervisors had so far approved only $100,000 for the project. With only a three-year lease in their pocket from the Mills Estate, the city of San Francisco dedicated the property 14 miles south of the city for its airport on May 7, 1927, and immediately began grading this site for runways and buildings.
Earlier, on April 25, 1927, still hoping that the Mills Estate would donate the land to the city, the supervisors had named the airfield Mills Field Municipal Airport. Shortly thereafter, on May 21 and 22, 1927, Charles Lindbergh made his historic flight from New York to Paris, and the country went wild over the future of aircraft. Fifty cents would allow you to view airplanes close up when “barn-storming” flyers landed in cow pastures all across the United States in the next years. On Sept. 16 of that same year, Lindbergh landed in the Spirit of St. Louis at Mills Field on a nationwide tour promoting air travel. In a flight two years later in a heavier plane, Lindbergh unfortunately got stuck in the mud while maneuvering for his takeoff. Other surrounding airfields that had hoped for government money for airmail contracts jumped quickly on this bit of misfortune that had smudged the good reputation that San Francisco wanted to build up for its airfield. However, progress was not long in coming to Mills Field. The age of commercial aviation had begun - and a little mud was not going to stop it.
Rediscovering the Peninsula by Darold Fredricks appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal.
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