One Of The Oldest Airports In The US Is Also One Of The Busiest In The Country

A little more than 100 years ago, one of the busiest airports in the United States was nothing more than a rough landing strip surrounded by tidal flats. Today, it is an international air transport hub for more than 40 airlines connecting 100-plus destinations worldwide. We are talking about Boston Logan International Airport (BOS). Established in 1923 adjacent to Jeffries Point, an East Boston neighborhood overlooking Boston Harbor, the airport's original footprint was a strip known as Jeffrey Field.

When it opened as a base of operations for the Massachusetts State Guard and the Army Air Corps, the original facility consisted of two 1,500-foot-long cinder — that's cinder as in ash, not block — runways that crossed at the top like the letter T. There was no runway maintenance crew. Just a couple of draft horses to pull a wooden drag over the cinder whenever it needed leveling.

Even then aviation visionaries were already plotting future development. World War I had just ended and the concept of commercial flight was gaining traction. City officials were aware of the impact an airport would have on future growth and development. The choice to build on a 200-acre parcel adjacent to the harbor wasn't happenstance either. It was a forward-thinking decision because it offered space for expansion by backfilling the surrounding flats — and Boston already had experience with a similarly massive undertaking. Twenty years earlier, the city had completed a decades-long project, filling the tidal flats of Shawmut Peninsula to create a brand-new neighborhood. Today Boston's Back Bay is one of Boston's most fashionable districts.

Fast forward to 2025 and it's clear those early-20th-century airport advocates were right. Today, Boston Logan International Airport is the 16th busiest air transport hub in the US, serving almost 20 million passengers annually. For the record, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) ranks No. 1 in the U.S. with 50.9 million passengers passing through its terminals each year. The Atlanta hub has also held the title of busiest airport in the world for 26 of the past 27 years and looks to retain its position for 2025.

But back to Boston. Clearly the transition from a rough landing strip to a world-class airport didn't happen overnight. Although it was built as a military facility, the airport got a jumpstart in the direction of commercial air travel when it landed a contract with the U.S. Postal Service to expedite airmail delivery between New York and Massachusetts. That was in 1926, a year before commercial passenger service commenced. In 1929, ownership was transferred from the U.S. Military to the City of Boston and the airport has operated under the auspices of the Massachusetts Port Authority since 1956.

Boston Logan International Airport today is a far cry from the simple cinder landing strip that opened on tidal flats in the 1920s. By the time it celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1923, a billion passengers had passed through the gateway — the world's most beautiful winter city — en route to destinations worldwide. Today, the airport comprises four state-of-the-art terminals offering comforts and amenities — shopping, dining, and a children's play area that ranks among the top five best airport playgrounds in America — that would have been beyond the realm of imagination when Jeffrey Field opened in the 1920s.