The Kinloch Airfield saw the first control tower, the first meal served on a flight, the first airmail shipped, the first parachute jump, the first aerial photo and the first animal airlifted. Albert Bond Lambert, the first person in the St. Louis area to receive a pilot's license, and fellow members of the Aero Club leased the field in 1920 and renamed it the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field in 1923. Two years later, Lambert purchased the field outright; on February 7, 1928, he sold it to the city of St. Louis at cost, allowing it to become the first city-operated airport and the precursor of today's Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.