1 / 7

This 1943 photo shows a hangar being put in place at the Provo Airport, then called the Provo Flying Service. Notice the two children on the porch roof watching.

Courtesy Ann Calder

2 / 7

Ann Calder looks at old photos of the Provo Airport in a family scrapbook.

Courtesy Provo City

3 / 7

This undated photo shows Merrill and Lucile Christopherson, who were instrumental in the creation of what is now the Provo Airport.

Courtesy Ann Calder

4 / 7

Ann Calder thumbs through old pages of a family scrapbook dedicated to the Provo Airport.

Courtesy Provo City

5 / 7

This circa 1950 photo shows a new Ercoupe plane coming to Provo Airport, then called Provo Flying Service.

Courtesy Ann Calder

6 / 7

This undated photo shows an Ercoupe airplane parade held in downtown Provo.

Courtesy Ann Calder

7 / 7

Ann Calder looks at a family scrapbook dedicated to the Provo Airport.

Courtesy Provo City

❮ ❯

As a little girl, her best friends were the mechanics and pilots at the Provo Municipal Airport, and Ann Christopherson Calder wouldn’t have had it any other way.

“I think I had more fun than anyone at the airport.” Calder said. “I would pogo stick to the fuel pumps by the planes.”

Calder said she would also help clean the hangar and take out the garbage as part of her duties to keep the airport tidy.

She remembers one time when the airport flooded and they built a canal around the airport. She also said she was constantly taking care of cats and dogs that people would leave at the airport.

She said even though there were lots of birds by the lake adjacent to the airport, people didn’t worry much about them.

“Once in a while a bird would get caught in a propeller,” Calder said.

She remembers that one time the family was featured in the Daily Herald and were referred to after that as Provo’s “First Family of Flight.”

Calder’s parents, Merrill and Lucile Christopherson, were the builders and caretakers at the airport starting in 1940. Both loved to fly and Ann’s dad, who was on the National Parks Council, had Boy Scouts out earning merit badges and flying all the time with him and other pilots.

“Dad was interested in people learning to fly,” Calder said. “They would be thrilled to see what’s happening. It is what they wanted. My parents could see the potential in flying.”

Calder’s mother loved to fly, even what she was pregnant. Unlike warnings women get today from doctors about flying in their third trimester, Lucile Christopherson was always hopping in the plane for a flight here and there.

“I almost earned my wings before I was born,” Calder said. “My mother was seven months pregnant and was getting into an airplane to go to a funeral, but said she didn’t feel good. She called the doctor and he said come to the hospital and I was born 15 minutes after she got there.”

The first Provo airport was closer to town, about the area of the Provo Towne Centre Mall. The Christophersons purchased a plane and Lucile applied for a grant to build an airport and hangar in the current location by the lake.

They got the grant and built the hangar, a small office and one-bedroom apartment with a porch on top of the office. There were bunkbeds on the porch. They even ran a candy counter at the airport for folks to grab a snack. The Christopherson kids loved to sit on the roof of the porch and watch the planes.

The airport was originally called Provo Flying Service from 1940 to 1961. When the city took over, the official name became the Provo Municipal Airport. With the opening of the new terminals, the name has been officially changed to the Provo Airport.

For 12 years the family lived there. “The airport was our family,” Calder said. “Mom always has someone come in and eat with us.”

They finally purchased a home on West Center Street not too far from the airport so they could get there quickly. Calder’s grandfather took over the apartment when they moved.

Calder remembers the lights on the runway were turned on by a switch in their small apartment. The beacon at the airport could be seen anywhere in Provo. It helped the first commercial airline, Western Airlines, make safe landings.

Western Airlines had hubs at Los Angeles International Airport, Salt Lake City International Airport and the former Stapleton International Airport in Denver. It merged with Delta Air Lines in 1987.

“After the war (WWII), dad taught 5,000 to fly under the G.I. Bill,” Calder said.

Calder noted that all of her siblings when they first move to the airport were Kent, age 6, Mary, 3, and Ann, 3 months. Robert, the youngest, came later. Their dad taught all of the kids to fly as well. Calder’s husband, Jim, also flies.

One of the most cherished keepsakes Calder has is a family scrapbook of the airport. “To our family, the scrapbook is a treasure,” she said.

The scrapbook is filled with photos and newspaper clippings of the comings and goings at the airport and is significant to the history of the city as it opens the new terminal that will bring in more commercial flights as well as private and corporate jets.

The airport continued to expand and gain recognition in and outside of Utah during those early years. Merrill Christopherson was making a name for himself and the airport.

As time went on, he was getting noticed by some of the airlines and eventually they approached him and asked if he would start a travel service, which included travel agents, tours and more, out of Provo. He did and Christopherson Travel was born.

For years, the Christophersons ran the travel agency and took more than 250 tours to Hawaii and other destinations.

Once just a landing field in a beet patch, that has now grown to a new four-gate terminal with room to grow to 10 gates, and the Christophersons’ dream has become a reality.

As a young girl, Calder would sit and watch planes land and take off from the airport and get a thrill from the experience. With the large jets coming in and out of the airport now, Calder says she still gets a thrill every time a plane takes off or lands.

“I love Provo and I’m thrilled to see growth and development,” she said. “We still own a plane at the airport.”

Newsletter