Houlton International Airport is a public-use airport located in the town of Houlton in

Aroostook County Aroostook County ( ; ) is the northernmost county in the U.S. state of Maine. It is located along the Canada–United States border. As of the 2020 census, the population was 67,105. The county seat is Houlton, with offices in Caribou and Fo ...

, Maine, United States, near the town border of Hodgdon, Maine, also on the border of

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, Canada. This

general aviation General aviation (GA) is defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as all civil aviation aircraft operations except for commercial air transport or aerial work, which is defined as specialized aviation services for other ...

airport is publicly owned by the town of Houlton. It once had scheduled airline service on

Northeast Airlines Northeast Airlines was an American trunk carrier, a scheduled airline based in Boston, Massachusetts, originally founded as Boston-Maine Airways that chiefly operated in the northeastern United States, and later to Canada, Florida, the Bahamas, ...

. The airport originated as Houlton Army Air Base. Prior to the United States' entry into

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, American army pilots flew planes to the base. They could not fly the planes directly into Canada, a member of the

British Commonwealth The Commonwealth of Nations, often referred to as the British Commonwealth or simply the Commonwealth, is an international association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire The B ...

, because that would violate the official United States position of neutrality. Local farmers used their tractors to tow the planes into Canada, where the Canadians closed the Woodstock highway so that aircraft could use it as a runway. From October 1944 to May 1946, the air base housed Camp Houlton, a

prisoner-of-war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...

camp.

Facilities

Houlton International Airport covers an area of and has two

runways In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (grass, dirt, gravel, ...

: * Runway 5/23: 5,001 x 150 ft (1,524 x 46 m), surface:

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

* Runway 1/19: 2,600 x 100 ft (793 x 30.5 m), surface: asphalt

References

External links

Airports established in 1944 Airports in Aroostook County, Maine Buildings and structures in Houlton, Maine Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in Maine Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command on the North Atlantic Route Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Technical Service Command {{Maine-airport-stub

Facilities

See also

References

External links