Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport now the airport's second largest carrier. In May 2001 construction of an over fifth runway (10–28) began. It was completed at a cost of $1.28 billion and opened on May 27, 2006. It bridges Interstate 285 (the Perimeter) on the airport's south side, making Hartsfield–Jackson the nation's only civil airport to have a runway above an interstate (although Runway 17R/35L at Stapleton International Airport in Denver, Colorado crossed Interstate 70 until that airport closed in 1995). The massive project, which involved putting fill dirt eleven stories high in some places, destroyed some surrounding neighborhoods and dramatically changed the scenery of
Benjamin F. Stapleton in the 1931 mayoral election to George D. Begole. The airport was later renamed Stapleton International Airport on August 25, 1944 in his honor. Today, the airport no longer exists, replaced by a neighborhood, also named Stapleton, and Stapleton Street, both of which continue to bear his name despite increasing political pressure to rename them due to Stapleton's adherence to white supremacy and controversial membership in the Ku Klux Klan. In 1935, Stapleton appointed George Cranmer, a wealthy former stockbroker, as manager of Improvements and Parks. Cranmer had luckily pulled his assets out of the stock market a year before