River Airport is an abandoned airport located north of
Caledonia, Mississippi
Caledonia is a town in Lowndes County, Mississippi, United States, northeast of Columbus. The population was 1,041 at the 2010 census.
History
Caledonia was first settled in the 1820s by settlers from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, Nort ...
, United States.
History
The airport was built about 1942 as an auxiliary airfield to the Army pilot school at
Columbus Army Airfield. It was designated River Auxiliary Field. It had a single
sod
Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls.
In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...
runway, and did not have any hangars or structures. It was apparently unmanned unless necessary for aircraft recovery.
It was sold after the war in 1945. During the postwar years it was used as a civil airport and also by the USAF during the 1950s for occasional touch and go landings. It was closed in the 1960s and abandoned.
Today, the outline of the runway is visible in aerial photography. The airport itself is cleared agricultural fields.
See also
*
Mississippi World War II Army Airfields
During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) established numerous airfields in Mississippi for antisubmarine defense in the Gulf of Mexico and for training pilots and aircrews of USAAF fighters and bombers.
Most of these airfield ...
References
Abandoned Airports: River Airport, MS
Defunct airports in Mississippi
{{Mississippi-airport-stub