TUSAYAN, Ariz. — President Joe Biden will visit Arizona to, if reports are to be believed, announce the establishment of a new national monument surrounding Grand Canyon National Park. The purpose of the monument is to preserve sensitive areas around the canyon, but also to permanently withdraw some areas from uranium mining.
He'll be making the announcement at Red Butte Airfield, which is so old that it was originally referred to as "Red Butte Aerodrome." It's one of those special Arizona places that are secreted away. This one is on the way to the Grand Canyon in the Kaibab National Forest. It's surrounded by Ponderosa pines and junipers and features a great view of the distant San Francisco Peaks. If you go there, you'll pass an old stone wall that used to hold up the aerodrome's sign and be witness to a quietly legendary aviation location.
Here's five things to know about it:
1. It was developed in 1927 — but it wasn't the first airport at the Grand Canyon.
The first airplane landed at the Grand Canyon in 1919, but it wasn't until 1925 when Ellsworth and Emery Kolb — two photographers who were pioneers of the tourism business on the canyon's South Rim — established the first airport south of the park's boundaries. But it didn't take off. A group of competing businessmen built one a bit further south in 1927 and that became Red Butte Aerodrome, home of Scenic Airways.
2. Red Butte Aerodrome has connections to early aviation industry
Lindbergh was the first pilot to cross the Atlantic solo in 1927. And he visited Red Butte 11 months later. But that's not even the coolest Charles Lindbergh connection. To cross the Atlantic, Lindbergh used something called an Earth induction compass, which was revolutionary for airplanes at the time. That compass was invented by a former World War I pilot named J. Parker Van Zandt, who was one of the investors who built Red Butte. Amelia Earhart, another pilot whose exploits fueled the nation's imagination, stopped at Red Butte in 1935 for several days. She also depended on the airport's chief mechanic for one of her record-setting flights, according to author Peter Corbett.
3. Red Butte is also connected to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport
The Van Zandt influence is strong. He and his fellow investors built Red Butte to take tourists on flights over the Grand Canyon. But they needed a steady stream of visitors and Arizona's population center was in Phoenix. Van Zandt helped build a small airport in Phoenix and named it "Sky Harbor." One of the people who helped him (and was a fellow Red Butte investor) was B. Russell Shaw, who had worked as a mechanic for the Wright Brothers.
4. The airport's namesake has about 200 million years of history to it
The "red butte" the airfield is named after a geologic landmark called "Red Butte," which is one of the few remaining outcrops of Mesozoic rocks that used to cover the area around the canyon. Pilots used to use the butte as a navigational checkpoint.
5. Red Butte was a luxury airport
This is a relative term, but early 20th air travel was rough. Red Butte had two unpaved runways, a lodge and cabins for travelers to stay in. Another famous visitor: Will Rogers, who was on one of 500 flights from the airport during the summer of 1928, after he toured the Hopi mesas.
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