Looking Back at the Overnight Destruction of Meigs Field

Chicago’s mayor in 2003 dismantled a historic lakefront airport and paid a ‘pocket change’ fine.

Meg Godlewski

Monday, March 30, 2026 at 04:52 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Zach Vasile

Meigs Field was the best way to fly into Chicago for GA pilots—before it was destroyed in March 2003. [Credit: Friends of Meigs Field]

Key Takeaways:

In 2003, Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley unilaterally ordered the illegal overnight destruction of Meigs Field, rendering its runway unusable despite previous federal agreements to keep it open.
The city faced a $33,000 FAA fine for the unauthorized closure and was required to repay $1 million in federal grant money used for the demolition and park conversion.
This event led to the "Meigs Legacy Provision," significantly increasing penalties for illegal airport closures, and served as a warning to other endangered general aviation airports about the potential for unannounced municipal action.

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It takes years to build an airport, at least 30 days to get permission from the FAA to legally shut it down—a situation that’s unlikely as the agency is in the business of protecting aviation—and just a few hours to destroy it. These are lessons learned on March 30, 2003, when the aviation world woke up to learn that Merrill C. Meigs Field (formerly KCGX) in Chicago had been destroyed overnight.

It wasn’t an act of nature. It was done on order of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who instructed heavy equipment operators to go to the airport under the cover of darkness and carve a series of X-shaped ditches across the 3,900-by-150-foot runway, rendering it useless.