1940 Air Terminal Museum - Houston, TX
Posted by: 
jhuoni
N 29° 38.819 W 095° 17.196
15R E 278656 N 3281854
In 1926, the Houston Chamber of Commerce created an Aviation Committee to find a suitable airfield for Air Mail. In 1927, the city council authorized the mayor to obtain the necessary land. However, no city funding was ever approved.
Waymark Code: WM11BEY
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 09/21/2019
Views: 2
From Living The New Deal
1940 AIR TERMINAL MUSEUM – HOUSTON TX
Project type: Airports, Infrastructure and Utilities
New Deal Agencies: Public Works Administration (PWA)
Started: 1938
Completed: 1939
Quality of Information: Moderate
Status: Marked
Site Survival: Extant
DESCRIPTION
Federal Public Works Administration (PWA) funds enabled the construction of the old terminal at what was then known as Houston Municipal Airport. The Art Deco building at William P. Hobby Airport now serves as the 1940 Air Terminal Museum.
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From the National Registry of Historic Places Registration Form -
Houston Municipal Airport Terminal
"Several airports sprang up around Houston before and during the 1920s to serve a growing number of private and commercial flyers. These included the South Houston airfield, the Bellaire field, and Main Street Airport. The Houston business community quickly grasped the capacity of aviation to enhance competitiveness, with its ability to deliver mail, express packages and personnel by air much more rapidly than rail or road transportation. During the early 1920s more than a score of small commercial planes capable of carrying one or two passengers operated from Houston fields. By 1924, businessmen sought Houston’s inclusion in the U.S. Post Office’s coming assignment of air mail routes, and prodded the city to acquire an airport suitable for hosting and servicing air mail planes. Mayor Oscar Holcombe, however, “was not interested in any city administration support for the development of an airport, saying it is just as logical for the city to help build a Southern Pacific Railroad Station as an airport.”
"The Kelly Act of February 1925 provided for the transport of air mail by privately-owned air lines. The National Air Transport Company (“NAT”) was created by Henry Ford and his associates to carry mail and express between U.S. cities in May of that year. Banker A. D. Simpson continued to lobby for the acquisition and equipping of an airport to convince NAT to extend its airmail line to Houston. By the Autumn of 1926, the Houston Chamber of Commerce appointed an Aviation Committee, which inspected every airfield within a reasonable distance of the post office and rejected them all either as unsuitable or because the land was prohibitively expensive. Though the committee had lobbied the city for several years, no city funds would be supplied for an airport acquisition. In June 1927, the city council authorized the mayor to negotiate to obtain the land necessary for the construction of an airport, but no financing was approved."
"There are references to “WPA Modern” architecture with respect to contemporary modernistic airport terminals, but
it was the Public Works Administration (“PWA”) funding that would play a role in large-scale public construction projects such as the development of the Airport. David Gebhard wrote that:"
"From the mid-1930s to the end of the decade the PWA sponsored the design and construction of several new airport terminals throughout the country. Befitting their commitment to the airplane, most of these terminals and hangars were Moderne in design, and most of them adopted a Streamline Moderne image. With rare exception, these terminals were superseded by larger facilities in the years after World War II… this Houston airport… remains primarily because a new municipal airport (terminal) was built in an entirely different location (on the same airfield)."