Aviation in Roanoke

In 1910, an awestruck crowd at the Roanoke Fair got its first glimpse of powered flight when a Curtiss biplane soared overhead. Within the next decade, gliders were lifting off from hills in South Roanoke and cow pastures were being converted into airstrips. Once Roanoke Municipal Airport was developed in 1929, earlier local airfields such as Cook, Trout, and Horton Fields were rendered inactive. Then in 1941, when—with federal assistance—the municipal airport became Woodrum Field, the regi...