Midway Airport: The First Seventy-Five Years
by Christopher Lynch

Lake Claremont Press
Phone: 773/583-7800
www.lakeclaremont.com

Midway's Older Terminal

As we drove on, the road curved, as we approached Cicero Avenue. We were now at "10 O'Clock" on the field, as we turned, and drove parallel to it, past the low level gates of Southwest Airlines. These gates are low to the ground, because they were designed to accommodate propeller airlines. Brendan the former airline refueller, looked on. "Ah yes," he said, "I delayed many a flight here, when I worked fueling the airlines," he said, whimsically.

It reminded me of one of the perks I had, due to my family business. If I ever had to go to the terminal to catch a flight, I would get a ride inside the field. It was exciting as we drove to the door that was used by the line crew, where the vehicle would stop, and I would open the car door to the high pitched whine of numerous jet engines. It was so loud, one could only mouth a word of thanks, and hope that the driver could read lips. I always felt like Frank Sinatra, catching a flight to the next gig. However, perhaps the Hollywood icon that would best suit these gates would be Humphrey Bogart, who helped bring romance to aviation when he said goodbye to Ingrid Bergman in "Casablanca" on a tarmac with a DC-3 in the background. I never got that feeling catching a flight at O'Hare, but I felt that mileau many a night on the tarmac of Midway, with the 1940's concave hangers in the distance.

However, on this night, it was quiet, and there weren't many planes parked on the tarmac. We drove past, with no planes coming or going.

We exited the terminal area, and proceeded South, a sort of no man's land of tarmac and lanes, leading to the active runways. We had arrived at the airport's "1 O'Clock". As one looks out at this nondescript area of concrete, it was hard for me to imagine that this was the place where my grandfather placed his first hanger, a small affair, with the name "Monarch" emblazoned above a logo from Shell Oil company.


The Monarch hangar, on the Cicero Avenue side of the field, early 1930's.
Photos from the Lynch family collection

This was the hanger where O'Carroll carved out his piece of the American dream, where transient aircraft would come to get fuel, where Wilbur Wright pulled up in the 1940's, a sort of benediction on the place from the co-inventor of the airplane. It was the site of the little ticket window shack on Sunday, Rose O'Carroll, my grandmother, would sell tickets for flights over the city: "See Chicago!" the sign read, as Scotty flew the passengers flew the DC-3, and my mother played as a young girl.

Rose O'Carroll selling tickets for sightseeing flights over Chicago, 1940's.
Photos courtesy of Lynch family

And towards the area where Cicero Avenue meets Central was the site of the small terminal, where people used to line up along the low fence to watch the airplanes come and go. It's where Franklin Roosevelt broke with tradition, and flew to the 1932 Democratic convention.

Continue the Tour: Take off at Runway 31

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