Safford Municipal Airport, Ca. 1931 (Source: Webmaster)

Safford, AZ was a small town about 80 miles northeast of Tucson. Its landing field was named Wickersham Field, after Register signer Earnest S. Wickersham (signed the Register as both pilot and passenger).

According to this REFERENCE, page 204, Wickersham Field was dedicated on 160 acres of land on August 19, 1928. It is interesting that a good number of arrivals and departures to and from Safford were made before this date. This is not unusual, since, "Safford was blessed with several natural airfields which required a minimum of work, and visiting pilots took advantage of all of them in the early 1920s." (page 69)

At right, from this REFERENCE, page 66, a description of Wickersham Field, ca. 1931.

Ten landings recorded in the Register cited Safford, AZ as their home base. Most of these landings were made by Tucson resident Charlie Mayse in his Curtiss (NC140?). Fourteen landings arrived from Safford, including, again, the majority by Mayse. Seven departures from Tucson identified Safford as their final destination. Mayse's passenger on many of these sorties was E.S. Wickersham.

Below, from this REFERENCE, page 66, a description of Safford Municipal, ca. 1937.

Safford Municipal Airport, Ca. 1937 (Source: Webmaster)

The Google Earth image, below, shows the location of the lat/long coordinates specified in the description above.

Safford Municipal Airport Location, Ca. 2010 (Source: Google Earth)

The location of the original Safford/Wickersham Airport is at the foot of a mesa as shown above, center. The town of Safford lies about 2.5 miles northwest of the site. There is no sign of an airfield there now, rather it is all cultivated land. The present-day Safford Municipal Airport lies at upper right, about 6.5 miles northeast of Safford.

Interestingly, in the lower right quadrant of this image is a matrix of streets laid out in a square. Under zoom, this is the High Mesa Air Park, LLC (elev. 3,080 feet). The single runway (~3,000 feet long) runs east-west at about the center of the development. Incorporation paperwork for the Airpark was submitted in 2004 and recent managerial and membership activity through the summer of 2010 suggests the entity is still under development. The Air Park lies about 1.5 miles southeast of the site of the old Safford Municipal.

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