Spanish Fork / Springville Airport

Beginnings

·         During the late 1920s and the early 1930s, the federal Works Progress Administration (WPA) offered to build airports for cities on the condition that participating cities provide the required acreage of fenced land with a road access.  Spanish Fork City elected to participate, and the current 160 acre Airport was built and certified by the Utah Aeronautics Board (UAB) and Civil Aviation Board (CAB), the forerunner of the FAA,  in the summer of in 1931.  Shortly after, Payson and Provo Cities also declared a desire to build airports, but were discouraged by the UAB and the CAB because their airports would be too close to the Spanish Fork Airport.  Then, in the 1935 – 36 time frame, Springville City petitioned to build their own airport.  Again, the UAB and CAB denied the request because it would be too close to the Spanish Fork Airport, and suggested that Springville team-up with Spanish Fork.  This they did, and, under the direction of Mayor John Booth, Springville paid Spanish Fork one half of Spanish Fork’s tallied Airport costs to that date.  As a final condition of participation, Springville purchased the necessary land from Mark Cook and built its own Airport access road that ran from the junction of 1600 South and Highway 89 west to the current Spanish Fork Main Street and then diagonally in a South Westerly direction to the newly constructed gravel runway.  There, on the east side of the runway, Springville also constructed some concrete parking aprons.

Other items of interest: Thorns of Springville provided the gravel for the original Airport runway.  Also, Springville’s participation in the Airport was encouraged by a Dr. Petty and a Mr. Claudin who at the time were desirous of attracting an aircraft manufacturing business from California to Utah.

(The source of this historical sketch is a 9 Feb 2001 interview of Ralph Woodhouse, the original Airport fixed-base operator (FBO), by his son, Tom Woodhouse.)

·         Airport is currently managed jointly by both cities with recommendations from an Airport Board comprised of unpaid volunteers from both cities.

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