Hampton Airfield (7B3)

AirNav: http://www.airnav.com/airport/7B3

Airport Website: http://hamptonairfield.com/History.htm

NHDOT Info: http://www.nh.gov/dot/bureaus/aeronautics/sasp/airports/hampton.htm

"Union editor Charles Francis Adams was an early advocate of building a Hampton airport on the marsh, which he hoped would become a major international facility. His plan was unworkable for a small town, but eventually, various people became interested in the idea of a small airport. In February 1927, the newspaper mentioned an airplane landing in back of Winnacunnet Road, the site of the “proposed new Hampton Aviation Grounds ....” The following August, residents learned that “An aeroplane has recently been stationed in the large field back of Henry Hobbs’s house on High Street. The pilot [unnamed] has been offering rides to residents but on one landing [the plane] hit a rut and broke its propeller.” A few weeks later, in September, a barnstorming flying show was based at the A. T. Johnson flying field. Using three planes, the pilots did aerobatic stunts over the town and the Beach, performed wing walking, and offered rides. These stories give different locations for the airport, but it was in fact situated in the great field between High Street and Winnacunnet Road, east of today’s Moulton Road. Named for its first owner, James Hutchings, the facility was expanded in the spring of 1931. In July, the first passenger to come to Hampton by airplane arrived from the East Boston airport, then went by car to his cottage at the Beach.

"In 1933, a special town meeting, held to seek federal funds that had been made available because of the Depression, authorized the Town to seek $2,500 for the airport and to lease land from the many property owners at the rate of $1 per year plus a rebate of their taxes. Similar airport projects were underway in Portsmouth, Lowell, and Newburyport. World War II brought an end to the airport. Postwar housing developments occupied the site, and in 1946, the current “Hampton” Airport opened in North Hampton."

New Hampshire Airports