Founded in 1931 as a college-owned facility, Virginia Tech Airport gained paved runway and hangar improvements in the early 1940s through school funds and a Works Progress Administration grant. During World War II, it became important through two training programs: the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which taught selected cadets at VPI and other colleges around the country to fly airplanes, and an aircraft mechanics training program operated under the National Youth Administration, which trained hundreds of high school graduates as mechanics. Students lived at a facility just northwest of here.