Like many Vermont stories, BTV's starts on the farm. Imagine three well-dressed men standing in a cornfield near Williston Road debating whether the field could be cleared and leveled to make an adequate landing strip. Not long after the Wright Brothers took to the air in a powered flying machine, these three visionaries—WWI pilot and future Mayor of Burlington, Johnny Burns, Aviation Commissioner Mason Beebe and Chamber of Commerce secretary James Taylor—ended the debate, raised funds to purchase the land and transformed the field into a landing strip. It was 1920 and the Burlington Airport was officially on the map.