New Orleans Lakefront Airport: The End of an Era
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In the 1930s Shushan Airport was one of the most advanced airports in the country. During the airport's heyday, the Orleans Levee Board extended the airports' runways numerous times to accommodate the newer and increasingly larger passenger planes, but this growth and success soon came to an end.
The success of Shushan Airport were due in large part to the work of a few key individuals, all of whom were incapacitated soon after the airport's opening. Between 1935 and 1936, the founders of Wedell and Williams Air Service died in plane crashes. In 1935, Huey P. Long was assassinated. In 1941, after years of corruption scandals, the Louisiana Supreme Court convicted Abe Shushan of wire fraud.
In order to distance the airport from association with Shushan's political scandals, authorities renamed Shushan Airport the New Orleans Lakefront Airport.
Following World War II, the airport lost commercial flights to Moisant Field (now Louis Armstrong International Airport), but it continues to handle personal and company flights, flight schools, and some military flights.
Files
Admiral William Moffett Hangar
This hangar was named for the "father of naval aviation," who died in 1933. Lettering that read "Shushan Airport" was on the roof until the name change and subsequent removal of Shushan's name. Courtesy of the Louisiana Division/City Archives, New Orleans Public Library, WPA Photographic Collection
New Orleans Lakefront Airport in 1964: More Function, Less Beauty
In 1964, the Orleans Levee Board extended the runway and covered the facade with concrete slabs to make a nuclear fallout shelter, which seemed to make sense in the Cold War. The airport remained like this until after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Courtesy of the Center for Southeast Louisiana Studies, Judge Leon Ford III Collection, Southeastern Louisiana University