MOVING HISTORY FORWARD: Fairgrounds has aviation history

In 1920, aviation was still in its infancy. Barnstormers traveled through, mainly. Yet the Coeur d’Alene city council and local chamber of commerce were visionaries. They wanted an airport to take them into the 20th century. With voter approval, they bought a 160-acre field just west of Dalton Gardens for $16,000 and named it Weeks Field after civic booster George Weeks. It became the first municipally owned airport in the entire nation.