Tucson Region

Bonnie Henry: Old airfields around Tucson are author's flights of fancy

He was 9 years old the first time he saw Tucson laid out below him. "It was my Christmas present. It cost my dad a dollar," says Jim DeCook, who flew in a 1930 Stinson Reliant piloted by Walter Douglas Jr., who would go on to build and operate Gilpin Field, later known as the Freeway Airport. The flight took only about 15 minutes - plenty of time back in 1934 to take in all of Tucson - Alvernon Way to the east, Grant Road to the north, "A" Mountain to the west and 22nd Street to the south. "Twenty-Second Street was a gravel road going east to nowhere," says DeCook, who used to regularly cross that road on his way to what was then Tucson Municipal Field. We now know it as Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. But back in the 1930s, it was kid heaven to DeCook and his pals, who roamed around the old Gilpin and Hudgin's hangars, sat in the cockpits and climbed the 60-foot beacon tower. Almost seven decades later, DeCook's love of all things aeronautical has scarcely dimmed. A few years ago, he started writing a memoir for his grandkids, which has since expanded to "Early Tucson Flying." It includes a history of flight in Tucson, as well as a listing of several old airfields. Most are no longer around. Among them: ● The Downtown Airport, south of 36th Street, between Kino Parkway and South Park Avenue. A landing spot for private pilots, the runway is now overgrown, though some hangars remain, says DeCook, who used to fly in as a passenger. Writes DeCook: "It was just a short walk over to the Crossroads Restaurant at 36th Street and South Fourth Avenue, where good Mexican food and a cold beer were always available." ● Wagon Wheels Ranch Airport, north of Broadway, between Craycroft and Wilmot roads. This was a hangar and two runways next to the Wagon Wheels guest ranch. Suburban sprawl closed it down in 1948. ● Kinsley's Air Strip, next to the popular bar and restaurant along the Nogales Highway at Arivaca Junction. The runway had no lights - no problem if you had an accommodating friend, writes DeCook. The pilot merely "asked a friend to drive to one end of the strip and park with his headlights on. We taxied the Cessna to the opposite end, did the engine run-up and pointed it toward the lights with throttle full-open, lifted off and cleared the car's rooftop nicely - with several feet to spare." ● Gilpin Field, which moved in 1940 from Davis-Monthan to north of West Prince Road, between North Romero Road and the railroad tracks. More than once, DeCook and his pilot would buzz Douglas' house late at night, and Douglas would go over to the nearby airport and turn on the runway lights, says DeCook. That easygoing approach ended in 1955, when the area was annexed by the city and local developer Arthur Pack took over most of the business and upgraded the facility, which was renamed Freeway Airport. Though it remained popular with pilots for years, operations eventually became too costly, and the runway closed to aircraft in 1980, writes DeCook. For all his love of flying, DeCook, 79, learned to fly only 17 years ago, as a glider pilot. He's since logged 542 flights. "I just couldn't do it before financially, what with family, kids, work," says DeCook, who is a retired groundwater hydrologist. "Most of my flying I've done as a passenger." That's OK. This little book soars. ("Early Tucson Flying" can be viewed at the Arizona Historical Society, 949 E. Second St.)