116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Time Machine: Terminating a terminal
Cedar Rapids passengers once waited for flights in a farmhouse
A new $20 million Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport terminal was opened for passengers Nov. 2, 1986.
It took some time, however, to demolish the old terminal because the asbestos used in its construction had to first be removed.
The demolition contract was finally awarded in January 1993. The wrecking ball from American Demolition Corp. of Iowa, co-owned by Dave Zinser of Cedar Rapids, finally swung into action in late March.
The terminal that had been built in 1953 became history.
First terminal was a farmhouse
In 1945, the runways serving Cedar Rapids’ airport were top of the line, but there was no shop, no hangar, and no permanent administration building. The terminal was an old farmhouse.
Commercial service started at the airport on April 27, 1947, when a United Air Lines DC-3 landed.
A one-story addition to the farmhouse accommodated United operations. Reservations were made in the living room. The dining room held radio equipment. The passenger waiting area was in the addition.
The FAA had staff on the home’s second floor, sharing a smaller area with the airport’s manager and assistant manager. At that time, the only hangar at the airport was owned by Collins Radio.
C.C. “Mac” McIntyre took over as United Air Lines manager at Cedar Rapids in 1948. A converted back porch at the farmhouse served as his office.
New terminal in 1953
Pilots considered the Cedar Rapids airport — at least its runways — one of the best in Iowa. The rest of the operation, though, needed improvement.
A new shops building and two new T-hangars were already in use when a new airport administration and terminal was being built in 1952.
The last day for the old farmhouse terminal — May 28, 1953 — passed quietly. After the last passengers boarded in the morning, workers began moving equipment and furniture to the new terminal. By nightfall, all operations were in the new terminal.
The farmhouse and its addition were moved to the edge of the airport property, where they were offered for sale. Airport Manager Frank Hidinger estimated the city might get $1,000 out of them.
“Ours was the last farmhouse administration building on any major airport in the country,” Hidinger said.
New terminal
The new terminal, in use from 1953 to 1986, cost $660,000 — about $7.8 million in today’s dollars.
It had four levels, including a basement, with a spacious waiting room/lobby, two airline offices, Civil Aeronautics Administration offices and rental office space for other businesses. Ads for Cedar Rapids businesses and industries filled 21 ad spaces.
The terminal was built to offer services to travelers and also to attract casual visitors.
A multilevel grand dining room on the second level overlooked the runways, along with four private dining rooms. People could stand on an outdoor promenade on that level to watch planes take off and land.
As a young couple in 1970, my future husband and I spent inexpensive dates at the terminal watching people and watching flights from the observation deck. We even spent a few quarters to play what were then new video quiz games placed strategically around the terminal.
A coffee shop and concessionaire’s shop were on the ground level.
Air traffic grows
When the new terminal opened in 1953, United Air Lines was landing eight flights a day.
The airport became the fourth in the state to have a radio-equipped air traffic control tower on June 30, 1959. The $50,000 cost to build and equip it atop the terminal came from the city and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Before we had the tower,” Airport Manager Frank Hidinger said, “the pilots had to operate on a ‘look, see and be seen’ theory when landing or taking off.”
United celebrated 10 years of serving Cedar Rapids in 1957. The crowd gathered for the event witnessed something unexpected when Lt. Col. W.J. Feiler of the Iowa Air National Guard “flew his P-51 too low, scraped the concrete runway with its prop and did a flip which landed him right side up and uninjured in a field on the south edge of the airport,” The Gazette said.
Passenger counts went from 5,000 in 1947 to 60,000 in 1957. That number increased to half a million by the 1970s.
That increased traffic led city leaders to begin investigating a new terminal in 1977. A design team drew plans, but the 1978 deregulation of commercial airlines threw a wrench in the works.
In July 1979, the FAA announced approval for a new air traffic control tower. Groundbreaking was a few feet northwest of the old terminal, in view of the existing tower.
The new seven-story tower was completed in October 1980, with installation of $1 million worth of electronic equipment following. The tower began operating July 15, 1981.
New terminal in 1986
The 1953 terminal made way for a new, modern terminal, with a ribbon-cutting Nov. 2, 1986. After the old terminal was razed in 1993, the land was paved over to expand the airport’s cargo apron.
At the airport’s 50th anniversary celebration in June 1997, it was renamed The Eastern Iowa Airport. In 2023, the regional airport reported a record 1.4 million passengers.
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