Kirksville Regional Airport

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Kirksville Regional Airport is seven miles southeast of Kirksville, in Pettis Township, near the village of Millard. One airline schedules passenger flights, subsidized by the Essential Air Service program.Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 684 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 926 in 2009 and 2,127 in 2010. The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a general aviation facility (the commercial service category requires at least 2,500 enplanements per year).Cape Air is the current airline, averaging 900 to 1,000 passengers per month. Three flights per day are offered to Lambert-St. Louis airport, with three return flights to Kirksville daily.HistoryAviation in the Kirksville area began within a few years of the Wright brothers historic flight. Local resident Nick Sparling is credited as being Adair County's first aviator, in 1909. In 1924, Roy B. "Cap" Dodson started the first airport in the area, located on the north edge of Kirksville. However, an airfield at the present location of Kirksville Regional Airport wasn't created until 1930 when the Federal Aviation Administration built a series of emergency landing strips across the nation. With America's entry into World War II, the Kirksville Municipal Airport, as it had been declared in the late 1930s, received a major upgrade from the Civilian Pilots Training Program and the US Army Air Corps War Training Service. In 1942 a paved all-weather landing strip, hangars, a control tower and small restaurant were built; the paved runway was 3870 ft until 1968.