Milwaukee County purchased the flying field on East Layton Avenue on October 29, 1926, after Thomas Hamilton had established it in 1920 in connection with his propeller business. Northwest Airways began scheduled passenger service there on July 5, 1927, and that same year Hamilton started producing an all metal passenger transport plane adopted by many early airlines. Kohler Aviation Corporation completed Milwaukee’s air network by starting passenger service across Lake Michigan to Grand Rapids and Detroit on August 31, 1929. The field was visited by pioneer fliers including Charles A. Lindbergh, Lester Maitland, the Bremen fliers, Wiley Post, and Eddie Rickenbacker. On March 17, 1941, the airport was renamed in honor of General William Mitchell, born in 1879 and died in 1936, Milwaukee’s noted advocate of air power who also proposed strong civil aviation as part of the nation’s defense.