Crissy Field
Crissy Field is a former airfield of the United States Armed Forces located in the Presidio of San Francisco , which is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area for local recreation.
Named after Major Dana Crissy , who died in a transcontinental flight , the military airfield , which was completed in 1921 and located in a marshland on the edge of San Francisco Bay , was one of the first facilities to defend the west coast of the United States by air forces. In the first decade after it was commissioned in 1921, Crissy Field was the scene of a number of records in long-haul flight. Its relatively short runway of around 900 meters, frequent fog, unfavorable wind conditions and the vulnerable location close to the water, however, reduced the military use of the airfield.
With the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge , a new airfield could be built on the other bank of San Francisco Bay.In 1936, Hamilton Field opened north of San Rafael and largely replaced Crissy Field. In 1974, just before the end of the Vietnam War , Crissy Field was closed to airplanes, but helicopter operations continued for a few years. After the army withdrew from San Francisco in 1994, the Presidio and with it Crissy Field were placed under the administration of the National Park Service , which now looks after the site as part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Serious environmental damage from military use made extensive renaturation of the site necessary, which was completed in 2001.
Web links
- Crissy Field on the National Park Service pages .
Coordinates: 37 ° 48 ′ 15.1 ″ N , 122 ° 27 ′ 34.9 ″ W.