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In the 1930s, as commercial aviation evolved into a more practical mode of transportation, San Francisco Airport launched a series of major improvements. Backed by funding and labor from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and the Works Progress Administration (WPA), by 1937, more than 790,000 square-feet of concrete runways, taxiways, and aircraft parking were in place, illuminated by modern, multicolored lighting and 45,700 feet of underground power lines. A new administration and terminal building was also completed that year. Designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, the building included a four-story control tower, restaurant, cocktail lounge, and a grand passenger waiting room with terrazzo floors and a stenciled ceiling. A matching building for the complex airfield lighting system sat adjacent to the hangars, and by the end of the decade, two-way radio communications were required for all aircraft. See “Mills Field and the San Francisco Airport” is on display in the SkyTerrace in Terminal 2 and online at: https://bit.ly/2XU7rAz The SkyTerrace located pre-security in Terminal 2 and is open Friday to Monday from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
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