loading image

This year marks the 90th anniversary of San Francisco International Airport. #Onthisday in 1927, the City and County of San Francisco signed a lease with the Mills Estate for 150 acres to use as an airport. The terms were for three years at the rate of $1,500 per year for this “temporary and experimental” municipal airport. Three years later, confident of the Bay Area’s important role in the future of commercial aviation, the City and County of San Francisco began a ten-year purchasing program to acquire 1,112 acres from the Mills Estate. The original tract of land remains part of SFO today. Image: Site of Mills Field Municipal Airport, Mills property east of the Bayshore Highway before airport improvements, aerial, 1927. SFO Museum Collection. 2011.032.0021 This image was posted on March 15, 2017.