Spurred by the surge of interest in aviation after Charles Lindbergh’s 1927 solo Atlantic flight, the City of Lubbock established a municipal airport about five miles north of downtown, purchasing land in 1929 and completing a brick hangar with Art Deco features in 1930. Built by W.G. McMillan Construction Company, the hangar had solid masonry construction, cast concrete details, parapet caps on the front and south facades, and a curved roof supported by steel truss girders. The airport was operating by the end of 1930, serving primarily local aviation needs, with occasional military use and rare commercial flights, and it used grass landing strips until the mid-1930s. In 1938, a federal Works Progress Administration grant funded concrete runways next to the hangar, and in the late 1930s or early 1940s a second sheet-metal hangar was added. In 1941, as the U.S. prepared to enter World War II, the city offered the airport to the Army, and from 1942 to 1945 the South Plains Army Flying School, later South Plains Army Airfield, operated there as an advanced training base for the U.S. Army Air Force Combat Glider Training Program. The city regained control of the airport in 1948, and a new terminal building opened north of the hangar in 1950.