The Grand Canyon’s Original Airport Lies Abandoned

Perhaps like many of you, I’ve always liked exploring old, abandoned buildings.  As a kid growing up in a village outside of Cleveland, Ohio there was this abandoned mansion…it really was a mansion…called the “Andrews Mansion”.  It was way back in the woods behind our home and had gardens and walled ponds with inoperative fountains and a butler’s residence.  It even had several antique steamer trunks filled with old clothing and letters upstairs.  Upstairs was hard to reach because the stairs had been removed from this mansion.

But as kids are prone to do if given the chance, we figured out a way to hoist ourselves up a wall to get to the second-floor and rummage through the old streamer trunks.  If I had any historical insight inside me back then as a 12- or 13-year-old, I would have saved those letters for what may have been their historic value. Alas, I lacked that insight.  To my knowledge those letters ended up as kindling for the downstairs fireplace that still worked and in which we kids burned wood fires on cold winter days while we sat around trespassing in that old mansion and telling ghost stories.  Those were the days of free-range kids and of mothers who encouraged free-ranging kids.

But mom encouraged us to take measured risks.  Or was it that what was really happening was that not knowing what foolishness we were up to, she was less encouraging of our risk-taking and more ignorant about our risk-taking?

Either way, we kids were happy to be able to “cheat death” (if not a bone breaking fall from the second floor to the first-floor stone tiles) and take those risks, and do so away from mom’s protective oversight.  And taking those risks might have ultimately led me to and prepared me for the Marines and to flying Marine Corps aircraft.  So, all’s well that ends well.

Hence this next aviation history vignette that reminded me of those risks we took and how I’d love to relive my childhood and explore this abandoned historic airport.  How about you?  

From the website Atlas Obscura:  “The Grand Canyon’s original airport, which once welcomed pilots like Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, lies abandoned.

“Its hangar and buildings now abandoned and nearly forgotten in the Kaibab National Forest, the Red Butte Airfield was the Grand Canyon’s original airport, and it hosted some notable guests in its time.

“Retired US Army pilot J. Parker Van Zandt and engineer B. Russell Shaw, who had worked with aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers, opened the airfield in 1927 as Scenic Airlines, Inc. Soon after it opened, the stock market crash that sparked the Great Depression forced them to sell the airfield. The new owners renamed the airfield “Grand Canyon Airlines.” Today, the paint on the hangar has faded enough that both of the original names are faintly visible.

Over the years, many notable visitors landed at the historic airfield. Charles Lindbergh, famed for his nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, landed at Red Butte in 1928. Comedian Will Rogers flew out of Red Butte, chartering a scenic flight to observe the striking Arizona landscape from the air. Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart spent several days at Red Butte having her plane serviced by the airfield’s mechanics.

Grand Canyon Airlines hangar with Red Butte in the background.  Photo courtesy Wiskeybristles.

The current Grand Canyon National Park Airport was opened in 1967 in Tusayan, Arizona. Closer to the canyon and more modern, the new airport quickly became favored over the one at Red Butte. Helicopter tours, firefighting vehicles, ambulance flights, and private planes all use the newer airport seven miles south of the canyon rim.

Several of the buildings at the Red Butte Airfield burned down in 1994, and a local ranch used the property until 2003. Although it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, it is largely passed by unnoticed by the Grand Canyon’s thousands of daily visitors.

Grand Canyon Airlines hangar.  Photo courtesy of Patrick Krapps.

“The easiest way to get to the abandoned airfield is by taking Forest Road 305 off of Highway 64. Take a slight right at the fork immediately after the exit, and remain on 305, which becomes Old Grand Canyon Airport Road, and drive for a few miles until you reach a fork. Stay to the right again. An unlocked gate meant to keep in cattle crosses the road. Close it behind you, and the airfield is just ahead. Signs in the area warn of security cameras and against trespassing, so it is advised that you observe the abandoned airport from the surrounding roads and not enter any of the buildings.”

That suggestion for less risk and to observe the airport from a distance is just an encouragement to me.  The threat of security cameras and the warnings against trespassing meant nothing to me as a kid.  And even as an adult I’d still like to explore the abandoned hangar, walk in the footprints of Amelia Earhart, the Wright Brothers, and Will Rogers, and take a selfie with the hangar and Red Butte in the background.  Then I’d get the “hell out of Dodge”, armed with another good, abandoned building experience in my memory banks.