Jack Drake: Looking at Love Field History

When people think of Dallas Love Field Airport today, they probably think of Southwest or private jets. Maybe they think of the creative billboards along Mockingbird before the entrance to the Main Terminal or the landing aircraft flying overhead while walking around the Bachmann Lake Trail.

However, the original Dallas Love Field certainly lived up to its name when it opened in November 1917 (during World War I) as a military training airport. It lived up to its name because the parallel runways, state-of-the-art terminal, and massive facilities dotting Lemmon Avenue did not exist. It was simply a grass field with no runways, stretching from slightly north of Lovers Lane to ‘Hangar Row,’ which was an east-west strip of 11 hangars, military housing and other structures south of today’s Shorecrest Drive. The road was officially named Love Field Drive.

After the War, Love Field’s story looked much like other famous airports around the country: barnstormers, flight schools, a little bit of military aviation, daredevils and eventually, Airmail. With a surplus of aircraft and trained pilots from WWI, the Airmail Act of 1925 began awarding contracts for companies to transport mail around the country, and this eventually led to passenger aviation. Among the first was Contract Airmail Route 3, stretching from Dallas (Love) to Chicago with stops in Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa.

The first flight took off on the morning of May 12, 1926, and this marked the first-ever commercial flight in the state of Texas. Herb Kindred of National Air Transport flew the Curtiss Carrier Pigeon aircraft. Early passenger service started shortly after, with flights operating out of hangars. Southwest Air Fast Express began passenger service to Tulsa on April 2, 1929. These successes led to the Dallas City Commission voting to purchase the airport for $325,000 ($6.16 million in 2025) from the Dallas Chamber of Commerce’s Love Field Industrial District on March 30, 1928. Charles Lindbergh allegedly pushed Dallas into this decision.

An immediate result of this decision was the construction of a new passenger terminal. It opened in 1929. This terminal was the site of the first passenger flight for a little-known company called Delta Air Service, Inc., which had started as Huff Daland Dusters, Inc. in 1925. The route was from Dallas Love Field to Jackson, Mississippi, via Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana and that company is now a very well-known carrier called Delta Air Lines.

Around the same time, a freight and mail carrier from Oklahoma, Braniff Air Lines, Inc., founded by Paul and Thomas Braniff, briefly flew to Love Field starting Sept. 1. The company restructured as Braniff Airways in 1930, and brought back service to Love in 1934.

Southern Air Transport was founded by Texas politician and business owner Alva Pearl Barrett when he purchased fellow Airmail carrier Texas Air Transport, founded in 1928 by Temple Bowen. Bowen started a new carrier, Bowen Airlines, which started passenger service from DAL in 1930. He would eventually sell to Braniff in 1936. Cyrus Rowlett Smith joined Southern in 1929 as Vice President. That company combined with others to form American Airways, which rebranded as American Airlines when it was acquired by Errett Lobban “E. L.” Cord in 1934.

These three companies would all become powerhouses in Dallas. All three would later build up hubs at Love Field and eventually Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport (DFW). They defined aviation in Dallas for many years.

Speaking of defining aviation, Dallas Love Field “[solidified] its position as the air capital of the Southwest with the formal opening of the $210,000 terminal” on Sunday, Oct. 6, 1940. The old building was quickly outgrown in 10 years, and it was clear they would need something new and fantastic.

According to The Dallas Morning News piece on the opening, “the most striking featur[e] of the interior is the terrazzo map on the floor of the central concourse, showing the United States, part of Canada, the West Indies, Mexico, Central America and the northern part of South America.”

The Art Deco building featured metal doors and windows, murals throughout, and an observation deck. Thomas D. Broad was the architect, Wood & Scurlock were the contractors for the structure and O’Neal Construction Company did the paving for $23,401. There were initially five ground boarding gates, but this terminal was an early adopter of a ground air conditioning system that provided cool air to aircraft. Before passengers stepped onto cool aircraft (the temperature and the types of planes themselves), the terminal was intended to be an experience in and of itself.

Passengers “will eat in a smart restaurant on the upper terrace where they can see their planes come in, or in the convenient coffee shop downstairs, or sip a soda at the well-equipped soda fountain, or buy their papers and magazines and smokes at a well-stocked cigar stand. Luxurious lounges for ladies and men will be waiting for them.

Of course, this will be a far cry from the old days when the airport terminal was just where your ticket was checked, your baggage was weighed and loaded, and your friends met and saw you off.” -Fairfax Nisbet

An opening ceremony packed with “air-minded citizens” featured Dallas Mayor Woodall Rodgers, CAA regional director, L.E. Elliott, Dallas Chamber of Commerce President J.B. Adoue, Jr., WPA Regional Director Gus Thompson, Braniff VP Robert J. Smith (as well as the Braniff Troubadours), American Airlines VP O.M. (Red) Mosier, Delta President C.E. Faulk, City Manager James Aston, Scottish Bagpipe Bands, high school bands, Dallas Aviation School cadets, and a special color guard honoring disabled WWII veterans. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt described the facility as “one of the nicest in the airways system” during her visit on the afternoon of Dec. 1, onboard an American Airlines flight.

Military activity resumed at Love Field during WWII. Longtime tenant Dallas Aviation School trained aviation cadets, Lockheed Aircraft Corporation opened a facility, and the Fifth Ferrying Group and the Women Airforce Service Pilots of the Air Transport Command opened bases.

The addition of larger Douglas DC4 aircraft and new airlines to Love Field following WWII prompted a terminal expansion, adding wings on each side of the original building to increase the gate capacity. The East Wing opened on March 9, 1947 and the West Wing opened on Aug. 10, 1948.

Just as the facilities of the late 1920s built to support 10-ish passenger aircraft like the Fort TriMotor, Lockheed Vega, and Travel Air 6000 were quickly made obsolete, the same fate was coming to the Art Deco Lemmon Avenue terminal built for DC2s and DC3s by the 1950s, and it would seem more expansion would need to be made.

This is part 1 of a series on Love Field.