There was a time when Lunken Airport was among the busiest airports in the world. In the 1930s and '40s, Lunken was where you went to fly out of Cincinnati.

        It began as a cornfield, a centuries-old cornfield tilled by Native Americans, before white settlers arrived and built cabins. By 1900 is was still a cornfield, except for a polo ground that became, in the early days of flight, a perfect place for pilots to practice landing.

Model builder Robert Plogman works on the Luken Airport model. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

        Edwin Lunken donated the 230-acre site to the city in 1930. Jean Harlow and Howard Hughes attended the dedication, and Paul Whiteman's orchestra entertained. A Cincinnati-made airplane, the Aeronca, was manufactured in the hangars.

        It was never a perfect place for an airfield. The surrounding hills made it dangerous for instrument landings. Each spring, it was under water. The 1937 flood, the city's worst, inundated the new terminal building and marked the beginning of the end for Lunken.

        World War II extended Lunken's life, as the Army Air Corps Reserve learned to fly fighter and cargo planes there. With the end of the war in 1945, Lunken's fate was sealed. The new Greater Cincinnati Airport opened in Northern Kentucky in 1947.

        The 1940s-era Lunken is Cincinnati's airport again in City In Motion, the scale model of Cincinnati in various periods from 1890 to 1940. The exhibit opens Nov. 18 in the Cincinnati History Museum at Museum Center.

        Visitors to the History Museum can watch the installation in progress, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday.

        Admission to the History Museum is $6.50, $4.50 ages 3-12; combo tickets to other attractions extra. 287-7000.

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