45. Joplin Municipal Airport
(1937) (Highway 171)

After a special election in 1935, the City of Joplin purchased 319 acres for $27,000 to construct an airport. Six hundred workmen used mine gravel to complete three unpaved runways in 1937. The airport site served as a stopping point for presidential and vice presidential candidates Harry Truman (1948), Alben Barkley (1950), Richard Nixon (1952), and John F. Kennedy (1960).

Curtiss aircraft