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"C" is for Columbia Metropolitan Airport

South Carolina From A to Z
SC Public Radio

"C" is for Columbia Metropolitan Airport. Prior to World War II, passenger flights in Columbia used Owens Field, first served by Eastern Airlines. During the war, the U.S. War Department acquired the Lexington County Airport and expanded runways, hangers, roads and buildings. After the war, the field reverted to peacetime use and airline operations moved there from Owens Field. The city of Columbia established a terminal, which burned but was quickly replaced. In 1965 a new terminal opened and has undergone several major renovations. Since 1962, the Richland-Lexington Airport District has operated the airport. The twelve-members of the Richland-Lexington Airport Commission represent the two counties and the city of Columbia. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Columbia Metropolitan Airport had a foreign-trade (duty-free) zone and served well over one million passengers.

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Dr. Walter Edgar has two programs on South Carolina Public Radio: Walter Edgar's Journal, and South Carolina from A to Z. Dr. Edgar received his B.A. degree from Davidson College in 1965 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina in 1969. After two years in the army (including a tour of duty in Vietnam), he returned to USC as a post-doctoral fellow of the National Archives, assigned to the Papers of Henry Laurens.