Foundation and Future
Airport renamed to highlight local pioneer
James Herman Banning, originally from Oklahoma, moved to Ames in 1919 to study electrical engineering. He learned to fly while living in the city, named his airplane Miss Ames, and in 1926 became the first African American to hold a pilot’s license from the U.S. Department of Commerce, followed quickly by a mechanic’s license. He worked as a barnstormer and air circus performer before eventually becoming the chief instructor at a flight school in Los Angeles. Banning and fellow pilot/mechanic Thomas Allen were the first African Americans to fly coast to coast.
They flew their Alexander Eaglerock biplane from Los Angeles to Long Island, New York, raising money for the flight as they went along. From pawning one of their own flight suits to dropping election campaign leaflets for hire to allowing people to write their names on the wings in exchange for donations—leading to the aircraft’s nickname “the gold book”—Banning and Allen overcame mechanical and financial difficulties. Twenty-one days later, they arrived in New York where they were welcomed with large celebrations and given the key to the city by Mayor Jimmy Walker.
The Ames airport and city held a public event for the renaming ceremony in June, which included an address by Christopher Hart, Banning’s great nephew, pilot, and former chairman of the NTSB from 2009 to 2018.
“In 1932, Banning and his co-pilot mechanic Thomas Allen became the first African American pilots to fly across America,” Hart said. “Ames was an important stop of Banning’s journey into the chapter of American aviation history.”
An exhibit dedicated to Banning was installed on one of the walls within the terminal, with additional sections to highlight other aviation pioneers with ties to the area: Neta Snook, the first women pilot in Iowa and Amelia Earhart’s flight instructor; Frederick Douglass Patterson, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and served as president of Tuskegee University; and Hap Westbrook, a B–24 bomber pilot who helped establish the Iowa Air National Guard and ran a flight school in Ames.
The airport was established in 1943 by popular city vote and was originally two turf runways, now paved. It was modernized with a new hangar and terminal built in 2017.
The terminal with the new exhibits is open to visitors from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the week and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekends.
