Stapleton International Airport retail and residential neighborhood. Stapleton opened on October 17, 1929 as Denver Municipal Airport. The development of the airport was spearheaded by Denver mayor Benjamin F. Stapleton and Improvements and Parks Department manager Charles Vail. Prior to the new airport's opening, Denver had been served by a number of smaller facilities, including an airstrip along Smith Road in Aurora (first used in 1911), an airfield at 26th Avenue and Oneida Street, Lowry Field near 38th Avenue and Dahlia Street, and Denver Union Airport at 46th Avenue east of Colorado Boulevard. In the late 1930s the airport facilities consisted of two
Denver International Airport away than Stapleton International Airport, the airport it replaced. The distant location was chosen to avoid aircraft noise affecting developed areas, to accommodate a generous runway layout that would not be compromised by blizzards, and to allow for future expansion. The 52.4 square miles (136 km) of land occupied by the airport is more than one and a half times the size of Manhattan (33.6 sq mi or 87 km2). At 33,531 acres (136 km), DIA is by far the largest land area commercial airport in the United States. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is a distant second at 70 km