10 LOST AIRPORTS OF METRO ATLANTA
Part 2 Back to part 1
5. Mercer Air Field
Various aircraft of the World Air Museum at Mercer Air Field in April 1993. Photo by David Henderson.
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Bordering I-75 halfway between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Mercer Air Field was home to the World Air Museum and its collection of vintage military aircraft. The airport was constructed in 1974 by Ervin Lamar Mercer on land he purchased for his trucking company (which bordered the field) and had a single grass runway. Mercer built & initially used the airport for his personal Beechcraft Bonanza, but after he became a grandparent he began bringing in military aircraft for his grandchildren to play on! What began as a giant air-themed playground gradually became the World Aircraft Museum. As Mr. Mercer's health declined in the early 2000s, the aircraft were sold and flown out, trucked away or chopped up for scrap. The north end of the airport is now the site of a new expressway interchange.
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4. Gunn Airfield
Aerial view of Gunn Airfield from December 1968 shows over 30 light aircraft at this once busy airport.
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Gunn Airfield was located in south DeKalb county near the intersection of Covington Highway and Panola Road. The airport was built shortly after World War II by George Gunn in a relatively flat area surrounded by rolling farmland and forests. By the late 1960s the airfield was home to over 40 aircraft, but space limitations and encroaching development prevented much needed expansion. Mr. Gunn retired in the early 1970s and the airport closed sometime around 1974. The entire site was redeveloped as a subdivision in the 1980s.
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3. Bellah Field
A 1964 topographic map depicting the multiple runways and sprawling layout of Bellah Field, southeast of Atlanta. The airports namesake, barnstormer, flight instructor and Georgia Aviation Hall of Famer E.G. Bellah is shown in the inset.
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Gordon Bellah was a barnstormer in the 1930s and flight instructor during World War II. After the war he built his own airport, Bellah Field, southeast of Atlanta near Stockbridge, GA and formed the Bellah School of Aeronautics. The airport was also home to one of the first skydiving schools in the south and many features of the modern parachute were developed there. The sprawling airport eventually included 4 turf runways and was shown on aeronautical charts as Bellah International. Mr. Bellah passed away in 1996 but the airport remained until the early 2000s although it saw virtually no use in later years. Gordon Bellah was inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall Of Fame in 2014 and his former airport is now the site of the appropriately named Bellah Landing subdivision.
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2. South Expressway Airport
South Expressway Airport in October 1980.
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Located 9 miles south of Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, South Expressway was once the busiest privately owned general aviation airport in metro Atlanta and was home to over 110 aircraft. The airport included maintenance and aircraft washing and painting facilities as well as flight instruction, aircraft leasing, charters, sightseeing and aerial photography services. The small airport layout and community concerns following several crashes into nearby homes prompted the closure of the field in the mid 1990s. Ironically for nearby residents who felt the airport was a detriment to their neighborhood, South Expressway was replaced by the Clayton County Jail.
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1. Cumming Airfield
These two photos show the transformation of Cumming Airfield from an airport in 1992 to a current day subdivision.
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Cumming Airfield, located 5 miles northwest of Cumming, GA off of Hurt Bridge Road, was a rare example of an old drag strip being re-purposed as an airport. Originally built as the Forsyth County Drag Strip in 1962, it was later known as Cumming Dragway. At some point in the 1980s the asphalt strip was converted into a runway and renamed Cumming Airfield. The airport was redeveloped as the Hurt Bridge Park subdivision in the early 2000s and Bridgeshaw Drive now runs the length of the former runway and drag strip.
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For more information about forgotten airports of the United States, visit Paul Freeman's excellent Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields.
