Chicago Aviation: One City. Many Gateways Part 3: The Western Anchor: DuPage Airport (DPA)

Originally posted on LinkedIn September 14, 2026

If you drive west out of Chicago along North Avenue or Route 64, the scenery slowly starts to change. The high-rises and dense suburbs give way to corporate campuses, warehouses, industrial parks, and the growing business centers of DuPage and Kane counties.

Right in the middle of it all is DuPage Airport (DPA).

And it has been there a lot longer than most people probably realize.

The airport traces its roots to 1927, when two Chicago entrepreneurs acquired a piece of farmland in West Chicago and began operating aircraft from a simple grass strip.

World War II changed everything.

The U.S. Navy took over the property in 1941 and began developing it for military use, adding paved runways, hangars, and facilities for pilot training. Nearby, Howard Aircraft Corporation built a manufacturing plant and produced hundreds of trainer, transport, and air ambulance aircraft for the military.

Some pieces of that history are still visible at DuPage today. One of the original wartime runways, for example, eventually became what is now Taxiway C.

Then came one of my favorite details in the airport's history.

After the war, in 1946, the Navy sold the property to DuPage County.

The price: $1.

The airport continued to grow along with Chicago's western suburbs. New runways and a control tower followed, and by the late 1970s DuPage had been designated a general aviation reliever airport.

But one of the smartest decisions came later.

Rather than allowing development to slowly box the airport in—a problem that has plagued plenty of airports around the country—the DuPage Airport Authority bought land around it. Between 1985 and 1992, the airport grew from roughly 900 acres to about 2,800 acres.

That gave DuPage something increasingly difficult to find around a major city: room.

The opening of the DuPage Flight Center in 1993 pushed the airport further into the corporate aviation world, with 24-hour operations, U.S. Customs, fueling, passenger services, and crew facilities. The primary runway was also extended to 7,571 feet, giving DuPage the ability to comfortably handle large business aircraft.

Did you know?

There is also an award-winning golf course sitting on airport property.

Prairie Landing Golf Club opened in 1994 and was designed by Robert Trent Jones, Jr. But the course isn't there just because someone thought airplanes and golf sounded good together.

It also serves a practical purpose. The land generates revenue, helps with stormwater management, and—maybe most importantly for the airport—creates a permanent buffer against incompatible development.

DuPage has continued to invest in the airfield since then, including extending another runway to 6,443 feet and adding a modern Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting facility.

But the history isn't really what makes DPA interesting to me.

It's the map.

Think about a company with executives traveling to Naperville, Oak Brook, or businesses along the Route 59 corridor. You can fly them into O'Hare, put them in a car, and then send them right back west through Chicago traffic.

Or you can land them at DuPage.

That's the advantage.

For the right trip, passengers can arrive on the same side of the metro area as their actual destination, get off the airplane, get into a car, and be on their way without first fighting their way back out of the city.

And that's really the point of this series.

Chicago aviation isn't just O'Hare and Midway. The region has an entire network of airports, and each one can make sense for a completely different trip.

For Chicago's western suburbs, DuPage Airport is one of the most important pieces of that network.