Lantana Airport Handled Civilian Traffic In WWII

Q: Is it true there was once another commercial airport than Palm Beach International?
A: Yes, at least briefly. It’s the Lantana airport, officially named Palm Beach County Park Airport. That facility, the oldest of the county’s general aviation airports, opened Aug. 20, 1941, to move civilian air traffic from Morrison Field – now PBIA – when that facility, 6 miles away, was turned over to the military during World War II.
Right behind it is Boca Raton. The airport was founded in 1942 as Boca Raton Army Air Field, a 5,860-acre flight and radar training base with more than 100 bombers and some 16,000 troops. It stretched from Yamato to Palmetto Park and from Military Trail to Dixie Highway. At the time, the city had fewer than 1,000 residents.
Most of the property eventually was sold. Of the remainder, about 1,000 acres later became Florida Atlantic University – the unusually wide parking lots are the old east runways – and about 200 acres were left for aviation.
Palm Beach County Glades Airport in Pahokee opened soon after, in 1949. The airport, which services many crop-dusting planes for nearby fields, was recently in the news because of reports the Sept. 11 hijackers had inquired about the planes and fears that they had planned a biological weapons assault.
The newest facility, the North County Airport, west of Palm Beach Gardens, opened in 1995.
The Boca Raton airport is the only one of the four not run by the county; it’s operated by the Boca Raton Airport Authority, founded by the Legislature in October 1982.
General information on Palm Beach County general aviation airports: Web page: http://www.pbia.org/
Palm Beach County Park Airport: 965-6400. Palm Beach County Glades Airport: 924-5696. North County Airport: 626-9799.
Boca Raton Municipal Airport: 391-2202. Web page: www.bocaairport.com
Read More: Our Century, by the Palm Beach Post staff

Tags: Boca Raton Army Air Field, World War II, WWII