The new planned community of Renaissance Park that is rising in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of South Wilmington Street and Tryon Road is located on the site of the Raleigh Municipal Airport that served this area during the early decades of the airline industry. Dedicated in 1929, only 26 years after Wilber and Orville Wright’s historic flight on the North Carolina Outer Banks, the Raleigh Municipal Airport represented the area’s leap into the future of 20th- century transportation that was lauded by such local notables as Raleigh News and Observer publisher Josephus Daniels and the then Secretary of State, Thad Eure, as well as the nationally- renowned World War 1 Flying Ace, Eddie Rickenbacker who was also the owner of Eastern Airlines. But perhaps the most intriguing personality to attend the Raleigh Airport dedication was Amelia Earhart, the female flyer who captured the imagination of a generation, and who inspired other young women to move into occupations that were heretofore closed to them.
The 1929 dedication of Raleigh Municipal Airport (Paul Freeman, NC Division of Archives & History)
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