Berkeley, Missouri

Berkeley is a north St. Louis County suburb that grew up in the shadow of an airport. The city incorporated on July thirtieth, nineteen thirty-seven, taking its name from a planned residential development called Berkeley Acres.

Its neighbor, Lambert St. Louis Airport, had been operating since nineteen twenty when Major Albert Bond Lambert and the Missouri Aeronautical Society graded a farmfield into a flying field. A young Charles Lindbergh flew airmail from there for Robertson Aircraft before his nineteen twenty-seven transatlantic flight.

As post-war aviation boomed, the airport expanded and Berkeley grew with it, filling in with workers, families, and businesses tied to the terminal next door. Today a portion of Lambert International Airport sits within Berkeley city limits, making it one of the few American cities that literally contains a major airport.