Vol. 4, No. 3, March 2007
RSS Feeds
Flights of Fancy
Bader Field and Atlantic City’s rich aviation history
Aviation in Atlantic City has a long history. In the first decade of the 20th century, the beach and the inlet at Gardner’s Basin were common take-off and landing sites for dirigibles and biplanes. For many years, Bader Field has been a constant. Though it will soon disappear, the former Atlantic City municipal airport’s place in aviation history is secure.
Atlantic City’s first proper airfield started with the work of Glenn Curtiss, a naval aviation pioneer. Curtiss flew a series of stunt and passenger flights from Atlantic City, beginning in 1910, and established a “flying station” on the north end of the Boardwalk. When, in 1919, a newspaper reporter christened the site an “air port,” a new word entered the English language.
In 1922, the city bought a strip of land surrounded by water on three sides for $375,000, added athletic fields and named the site for Mayor Edward L. Bader. Bader was first elected mayor in 1920, and held the post until his death in 1927 at the age of 54. The son of a Philadelphia contractor, Bader led a charmed life: moving to Atlantic City in 1902 (after a career as a professional football player), he took a job with a garbage collector before opening his own contracting business. He was an unstinting promoter of the city, and under his administration the city made huge advances, including the planning and early construction of Convention Hall.
On June 5, 1923, the airport figured in a bit of journalistic promotion. With a convention of the Associated Advertising Clubs of the World meeting in town, the New York Times launched a clever marketing stunt. Newsmen loaded over 2,500 copies of the morning Times, fresh off the presses, into a charter airplane. After a 100-minute flight, the plane landed at Bader Field, and convention delegates enjoyed free copies of the paper, at about the same time New Yorkers were picking them up off their front steps.
In addition to serving as a hub for airplanes ferrying passengers from other cities, Bader Field also offered sightseeing tours. One such tour, in 1928, effected a miracle cure. Edith Leeds, two years previously, had lost the power of speech following her mother’s death. After a 30-minute plane ride with pilot Walter Allen, she found she was suddenly able to speak again. Also in that year, thanks to the burgeoning air traffic, the city enlarged the facilities, extending the landing strips.
Over the years, Bader Field hosted several boxers’ training camps, including those of Jack Dempsey (a personal friend of Mayor Bader), Max Baer and Jersey Joe Walcott, as well as boxing matches. For a time in the 1940s, the New York Yankees held their spring training there.
In the early 1980s, Bader Field was both an asset and a liability for the growing gaming industry. Casinos were happy to shuttle high rollers in and out of the nearby airport, but several casinos were forced to alter or abandon plans to build high-rise towers because of Federal Aviation Agency height restrictions in the airport’s landing approaches.
Ironically, one project that was partially waylaid by F.A.A. restrictions was Steve Wynn’s plan to build a large casino hotel on the former Two Guys site, land that ultimately became a Sam’s Club and is now the site of the city public works department. Wynn ultimately built his super-resort in Las Vegas, where the Mirage redefined the Las Vegas Strip. It would be fitting, perhaps, if Wynn acquires the Bader Field site and finally builds his “second casino” in Atlantic City—24 years later.
With commercial flights starting in 1978 from the former Naval Air Station in Pomona, the larger Atlantic City International Airport began to displace Bader Field as the area’s chief airport. In the 1990s, commercial flights stopped altogether, although it remained open for private aircraft, though traffic continued to decline.
On September 30, 2006, the world’s first airport closed for good, as crews painted large yellow Xs across its runways. With it ended a chapter in aviation history.
With the future of the site up in the air—it’s being discussed as the site of everything from Wynn’s triumphant return to Atlantic City to an amusement park—now is the time to reflect on the site’s past. Whatever the future holds, it will hopefully live up to the historic legacy of Bader Field.
