Blacksburg in Montgomery County, Virginia — The American South (Mid-Atlantic)

Virginia Tech Airport

By Bernard Fisher, April 3, 2011

1. Virginia Tech Airport Marker

Inscription. The airport was founded in 1931 as a college-owned facility. School funds and a grant from the Works Progress Administration in the early 1940s paid for paving a runway and building a hangar. Two training programs offered here made the airport important during World War II. The Civilian Pilot Training Program taught selected cadets at VPI and other colleges around the country how to fly airplanes. An aircraft mechanics training program, operated under the National Youth Administration, trained hundreds of high school graduates as mechanics. Students lived at a facility just northwest of here.

Erected 2005 by Department of Historic Resources. (Marker Number I-23.)

Marker series. This marker is included in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects marker series.

Location. 37° 12.318′ N, 80° 24.518′ W. Marker is in Blacksburg, Virginia, in Montgomery County. Marker is on Tech Center Drive 0.1 miles east of Kraft Drive, on the right when traveling west. Touch for map. Marker is in this post office area: Blacksburg VA 24060, United States of America.

Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 2 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies. Eastern Continental Divide & 1763 Proclamation Line (approx. 1.2 miles away); Founding of the Future Farmers of Virginia

By Bernard Fisher, April 3, 2011

2. Virginia Tech Airport Marker

(approx. 1.2 miles away); Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (approx. 1.2 miles away); Smithfield (approx. 1.2 miles away); Blacksburg Motor Company Building 1924 (approx. 1½ miles away); William Ballard Preston (approx. 1½ miles away); John Redd Hutcheson (approx. 1.6 miles away); Thomas Barksdale Hutcheson (approx. 1.6 miles away). Touch for a list and map of all markers in Blacksburg.

Also see . . . Virginia Tech Montgomery Executive Airport. (Submitted on April 4, 2011, by Bernard Fisher of Mechanicsville, Virginia.)

Categories. • Air & Space • Education • War, World II •

Credits. This page was last revised on June 16, 2016. This page originally submitted on April 4, 2011, by Bernard Fisher of Mechanicsville, Virginia. This page has been viewed 428 times since then and 18 times this year. Photos: 1, 2. submitted on April 4, 2011, by Bernard Fisher of Mechanicsville, Virginia.