History Lessons: Bradley Field

Part Two: The Federal Civil Aeronautics Administration Designates Windsor Locks As The Site For A New Civilian Airport

Only a few weeks prior to the announcement by the War Department that the western section of Windsor Locks known as Bull Run had been chosen as the site of an Army Air Corps base, the same site was under consideration as a civilian airport.

In late October of 1940 the War Department announced it intended to make Brainard Field in Hartford the headquarters for the Army Air Corps Northeastern District as well as the base for a pursuit group and other air units. The War Department announcement was not welcome news for the private flyers and civilian pilot training services that operated out of Brainard. Faced with the certainty that most civilian flight operations would be barred at Brainard if it became a military air field, the flyers would need another airport in which to conduct their activities.

In mid-November Brainard’s private operators met to discuss possible sites for a new civilian airport and decided to solicit offers of sites from local municipalities. As of early December, however, the private operators had not received any offers of potential airport sites. The lack of offers was likely due to the burdensome requirements imposed on any municipality seeking to get Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) approval and grants to build an airport. According to the federal agency’s regulations, airport development sponsored by the CAA could proceed only if the town or city owned the site, made it available to the federal government without cost, and assumed responsibility for and the expense of maintaining and operating the airport.

Earlier that fall two men who flew out of Brainard Field, Charles Bissell and Dexter Coffin, had interested the Civil Aeronautics Administration in the Bull Run section of Windsor Locks as the site for a new civilian airport. Bissell, a broker, had taken up flying in the fall. Coffin enjoyed flying with his son, who was a licensed pilot. Concerned that Brainard might be closed to private aircraft, Bissell and Coffin suggested to the CAA that Bull Run would make an ideal civilian air field. Later on, Bissell, a member of the General Assembly representing the Town of Suffield, would play an instrumental role in the decision to place the Army air base in Windsor Locks.

At the time, most of the land in Bull Run was owned by the American Sumatra Tobacco Company. Smaller parcels were held by a few local families and several lots were owned by the Suffield Savings Bank. Another large tract was a proposed development, Windsor Park, consisting of 60 or 70 undeveloped building lots. The Town of Windsor Locks had either placed liens or foreclosed on the Windsor Park property because of unpaid property taxes. The assessed value of the land in Bull Run ranged from $25 to $125 per acre.

In early December, the Civil Aeronautics Administration announced it had designated a 262-acre site in the Bull Run section of Windsor Locks, owned by the American Sumatra Tobacco Company, as the location for Hartford’s second municipal airport for private flyers once the Army Air Corps located at Brainard Field. The CAA allocated $69,000 for development of the new airport. (The $69,000 grant would pay for the clearing and grading of the land and the installation of boundary lights.) According to the CAA, the site was discovered during the agency’s survey of possible sites for an airport where the private flying activities once based at Brainard Field could be carried on. Other proposed sites were found in the North Meadows area of Hartford and in Glastonbury.

The CAA announcement of the designation of the Windsor Locks site as a second municipal airport surprised both Hartford’s Mayor and the state representative of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Mayor Spellacy expressed doubt as to whether the city could legally assume maintenance of the field outside the city’s corporate limits, and  questioned whether the city would be justified in using taxpayer’s money for this purpose. The WPA representative said that a community must have at least a 20-year lease on property before state WPA funds could be used to finance work on an airport, a lease the Town of Windsor Locks did not have.

On December 13 the Hartford Courant reported that the Town of Windsor Locks had acquired an option to purchase the proposed airport site. The property had been leased from the American Sumatra Tobacco Company by an unnamed private individual, and through agreement with the company and the individual, the town held an option to purchase the property for airport purposes. Prior to acquiring the option, it was doubtful the Bull Run site could be developed as an airport because it was not owned by the town as required by CAA regulation. However, with the option in place, this obstacle appeared to have been overcome.  

A day later, on December 14, the town clerk for Windsor Locks denied the report that Windsor Locks held an option on the Bull Run site. It is possible that the confusion about the option stemmed from a difference of opinion among town officials as to whether to go along with the CAA’s airport development plan. Some town officials may have backed the plan while others perhaps understood that using limited town revenues to first purchase the property and then operate and maintain a civilian airport might not be in the best interests of the town’s 4,300 residents, many of whom had less than an eighth-grade education and a modest or low standard of living. Whether the report about the option was true or not, the town’s selectmen did not exercise the option and purchase the property.

On December 26 the Civil Aeronautics Administration announced that it had placed the Bull Run site on its approved list for airports because an unnamed individual had guaranteed that he would make the land for the proposed new airport available free of charge if Hartford and Windsor Locks declined to do so. According to the CAA, the selectmen of Windsor Locks could lease the 262-acre site owned by the American Sumatra Tobacco Company for the nominal sum of $1 a year for 10 years with the “privilege” of purchasing it for $40,000. The announcement concluded by saying the CAA was awaiting action by the Windsor Locks selectmen. 

Under the CAA’s scheme, the agency’s requirements of municipal ownership and making the property available free of charge would seemingly be satisfied. However, the taxpayers of Windsor Locks would still be responsible for the costs of maintaining and operating the airport. According to the Courant, the private individual did not express a willingness to pay the maintenance costs for the airport. And when the lease was up, the taxpayers might have been on the hook for the $40,000 purchase price or perhaps an even higher amount, depending on how the lease was drawn up. During the term of the lease, the property’s owner, the American Sumatra Tobacco Company, might also have been relieved of the obligation of paying taxes on the land, causing revenues to the town to shrink.

There is no indication that Windsor Locks officials ever accepted the CAA’s proposal. Without the full cooperation of the Town of Windsor Locks, a civilian airport was not in the cards for the small farming and industrial community. But a military air field was. 

By January 7, 1941, less than four weeks after the CAA originally floated the plan of locating a civilian airport in Windsor Locks, Army officials began to express serious doubts about the suitability of Brainard Field as the site of its future air base and began to give serious consideration to another site, the Bull Run section of Windsor Locks. Two weeks later, on January 22, 1941, as a result of a confluence of federal, state and private interests--an alliance that notably failed to adequately take into account local needs--Windsor Locks had been chosen as the site of the Army Air Corps base.

Part Three of the history of Bradley Field, How Windsor Locks Came To Be The Site Of An Army Air Corps Base will follow in several days.