Mills Field / San Francisco International Airport

Location / Airway

Location / Name

CALIFORNIA: San Mateo County
Commonly called San Francisco Airport
AKA Mills Field, San Francisco Municipal Airport, San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO, ICAO: KSFO, FAA LID: SFO)

Dedication

May 7, 1927

Contract Air Mail

CAM #18 San Francisco CA-Chicago IL
Route established July 1, 1927
San Francisco-Salt Lake airway
San Francisco-Reno section
Boeing Air Transport awarded CAM #18 on January 28, 1927
Boeing used Mills Field for 20 days before returning to Crissy Field and petitioned the government to use Oakland Municipal as their terminus.
December 15, 1927 Boeing transfered their operations from Mills Field to Oakland Municipal.

CAM #8 San Diego-Seattle
Route established September 15, 1926
Los Angeles-Seattle Airway
Fresno-San Francisco Section
San Francisco-Seattle Airway
San Francisco-Redding Section
Pacific Air Transport July 1, 1927

Bulletins

Links

1931 San Francisco Airport Report (pdf file)

Availabe to download at: Archives.org in multiple formats

Some of the photos in the report are shown here

1937 San Francisco Airport Report (pdf file)

May 13, 1966
Farewell Ceremony Saturday for Old Mills Field

By FRANK RAYMOND
Examiner Peninsula Bureau

A last public gathering will be held Saturday in the lobby of the old administration building at what was once Mills Field, the cow pasture that grew into San Francisco International Airport.

The event, labeled "Farewell to Mills Field," is being sponsored by the San Mateo County Historical Association and will bring together old timers of Bay Area aviation history.

It will begin with a box lunch at 12:30 p.m. in the terminal building that served the public from 1937 to 1954.

The structure, deteriorated through age from the lavish building it once was, will be razed by wreckers this summer. With it will go Mills Field's first big hanger, built in 1927.

The buildings will give way to a new runway for the multi-million-dollar International Airport.

During the party, the Historical Association will join airport administration authorities in a pictorial presentation of the airport's salad days.
An old timer who will attend is Dave Rasmussen, San Mateo restaurateur, who will serve the box lunch. He ran the first big restaurant at the airport. Before he came, there were only hamburger stands.

Another who intends to be at the party is M. B. (Mike) Doolin, World War I flyer who once was the airport manager and is now a practicing attorney.

Mills Field started operations in 1927 on 150 acres of the Mills Estate.

A sparse crowd attended the ceremonies at which the late Mayor James Rolph dedicated the airport. This reporter covered the event in a frail and rickety biplane piloted by a former World War I German Army flyer. It was the reporter's first airplane ride, making memorable by the creaking of weak wing structures.
Mayor Rolph predicted a great future for the airport. And his predictions came to pass.

Famed aviators flew in and out of Mills Field in those early days of a few wooden structures and rutted runways. It received worldwide attention when the late Sir Kingsford Smith flew his famous Fokker monoplane in the endurance flights of the ‘20s.

Col. Charles Lindbergh visiting Mills Field in a new-fangled flying job in the ‘30s, doubted that the airport would amount to much after his landing wheels were mired in a runway rut.

Through the old terminal building passed the delegates to attend the organizational sessions of the United Nations.

The building has had its glamorous days-days that the old timers will revive Saturday.

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