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
Stapleton International Airport to Concourse E. Continental closed its Stapleton pilot and flight attendant bases in October 1994, reducing operations and making United the airport's largest carrier. Delta Flight 569 from Dallas/Ft.Worth was the last commercial flight to land at Stapleton. On February 27, 1995, air traffic controller George Hosford, cleared the last plane – Continental Flight 34, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 bound for London′s Gatwick Airport – to depart from Stapleton. The airport was then shut down. A convoy of ground service equipment and other vehicles (rental cars, baggage carts, fuel trucks, etc.) traveled to the new Denver International Airport (DEN), which