Why stop here
Seattle's naval aviation hub served nearly 50 years (1920-1970), launching the first aerial circumnavigation of the world in 1924, training thousands during WWII as a major Pacific support base, and welcoming Charles Lindbergh in his Spirit of St. Louis. With over 5,600 naval personnel at its WWII peak, this lakeside base was one of only three naval air stations on the West Coast. Today its Art Deco hangars stand preserved in Magnuson Park, silent witnesses to an era when Seattle skies filled with patrol planes and flying boats defending the Pacific.
Before you go
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The long version
When World War One ended in 1918, the U.S. Navy wanted a base for aircraft to serve as the “eyes of the fleet” and create an air umbrella over naval bases in Puget Sound. Captain Luther E. Gregory chose Sand Point, a peninsula jutting into Lake Washington, as the ideal location.
In the spirit of boosterism that built Fort Lawton and the battleship USS Nebraska, King County commissioners began acquiring small farms on the site. On June 19, 1920, local officials and Navy officers held a groundbreaking ceremony that included symbolic tree cutting. Air mail pioneer Edward Hubbard landed a plane at Sand Point with King County Commission chairman Claude C. Ramsay as passenger.
Despite opposition from Tacoma supporters of an Army airfield near Camp Lewis, King County pushed forward. On October 8, 1921, Army Major Henry Kress Muhlenberg flew a Curtiss JN-4H “Jenny” biplane from Camp Lewis to Sand Point, making the first military landing on a 500-foot dirt strip.
King County spent roughly $500,000 acquiring and developing the property before deeding 413 acres to the Navy in 1926, a public gift that established what HistoryLink describes as one of only five naval air stations in the nation at the time.
Sand Point’s first serious mission came in 1924 when it was chosen as the launch point for the first circumnavigation of the globe by air.
On April 6, 1924, four U.S. Army Air Service Douglas World Cruiser biplanes — the Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans — departed Sand Point for Alaska and around the world, crewed by eight airmen: four pilots and four mechanics. Two of the original planes, the Chicago and New Orleans, completed the 26,345-mile journey, landing back at Sand Point on September 28, 1924 — 175 days total, 66 days airborne.
A huge crowd — HistoryLink puts it at at least 40,000 people, with more watching from boats on Lake Washington — greeted the returning aviators. The flight made 76 separate stops across 22 countries and achieved several firsts:
Four other nations attempted the feat in 1924 (Argentina, France, Great Britain, Italy), only the United States succeeded.
A 15-foot granite World Flight Monument, designed by sculptor Alonzo Victor Lewis, was dedicated at Sand Point the day after the fliers returned. Since relocated to the entrance of Magnuson Park on NE 74th Street, it still preserves the memory of this remarkable achievement.
On September 13, 1927, Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis at Sand Point at 1:57 PM. Just four months earlier, on May 20-21, 1927, Lindbergh had completed his famous solo transatlantic flight from New York to Paris, 33.5 hours, 3,600 miles, winning him a $25,000 prize and international fame.
His Sand Point visit was one of 80 stops on a three-month U.S. tour promoting aviation and airport development. A crowd of about 3,000 gathered at the airfield, and Lindbergh flew over downtown Seattle, Queen Anne Hill, and the University of Washington Stadium — where 25,000 more waited to hear him speak — before landing.
Lindbergh departed the next morning, September 14, around 9:15 AM for Portland.
In 1926, Sand Point was still a series of farms. The station commander worked out of a farmhouse. Three reserve officers assisted him. Reservists met one evening a week for drills, and on Sundays they flew, whatever the weather. Naval aviation cadets were billeted in a chicken house. The supply officer ran his department out of a kitchen.
The facility’s principal mission was training reservists, who performed valuable services like aerial mapping of Alaska and Washington. Although the base had a turf runway, the damp Seattle climate rendered it unreliable most of the year. Most operations used amphibious and float planes on Lake Washington.
In 1931, the full-time complement was 31 Marines and eight Naval personnel operating 14 airplanes.
During the Great Depression, funding was tight. Executive Officer Lt. H.B. Hutchinson recalled buying cinders in $50 lots. When he had enough to pave a runway, he borrowed a steam shovel from Bremerton to complete the job. By the end of 1935, with help from the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Navy had increased the buildings to 17.
In 1939, Pan American Airways began Clipper service to Alaska from Matthews Beach, just north of Sand Point, using four-engine Sikorski S-42 flying boats. Pan Am also used Sand Point hangars and runways. Sand Point witnessed the testing of Boeing’s big Model 314 flying boats.
That same year, five active Navy patrol squadrons, each with six multi-engine flying boats, were assigned to the base. More than 600 sailors were stationed at Sand Point.
In July 1940, $4 million was authorized by Congress to improve Naval Air Station Seattle, more than all improvements to date. By June 1941, four-month aviation service schools were turning out radiomen, aviation metalsmiths, and aviation machinists.
The grass runways were paved and the field expanded as part of the buildup.
With the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, NAS Seattle found itself one of only three naval air stations on the entire West Coast, and it became a hub of headquarters, training, supply, and repair functions supporting the Pacific war.
Twelve patrol planes departed for Kodiak just in time to help beat back Japanese attacks on Dutch Harbor, then continued missions against the Kurile Islands, part of the Japanese homeland.
Sand Point operations ballooned during the war years:
NAS Seattle hosted headquarters functions, a weather center, a communications center, and an overseas terminal for the Naval Air Transport Service. One hundred fifty shops provided repairs and modifications for fleet aircraft.
As shipyards in Tacoma and Vancouver produced escort aircraft carriers at a rate of one every two weeks, 50 in three years, Sand Point provided aviation supplies from propellers to parachutes.
Units trained at Sand Point participated in some of the critical battles in the Pacific war. “Sub chasers” flew patrols over the Pacific to detect enemy submarines. The base became a vital aircraft reconditioning and repair site.
Peace came in August 1945. By June 1946, the combined military and civilian staff dropped to about 3,000. NAS Seattle found itself with a substantially reduced mission. The Navy announced the base would close permanently on September 1, 1950.
But world events intervened. The Korean War erupted in June 1950. Closure plans were first held “in abeyance,” then canceled entirely. The base went to a six-day work week overhauling and modifying aircraft, training reservists, supporting operations at Whidbey Island, and supplying the fleet.
When the Korean War ended in 1953, the station’s responsibility for overhauling aircraft ended. The number of civilian employees dropped from 1,800 to 200.
The facility returned to its original role as a Naval Reserve training base. Sand Point reservists were recalled to active duty during the Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Throughout the 1960s, the station and its tenant units won many awards for efficiency, safety, and readiness.
But the development of the combat-ready Naval Air Station Whidbey Island made Sand Point superfluous. The city of Seattle had extended its boundaries, encroaching on the base. As early as 1936, citizens demanded the Navy deploy patrol boats on Lake Washington to prevent collisions between boaters and amphibious aircraft. Just before WWII, citizens obtained a prohibition against aircraft carrying bombs off Sand Point runways.
The end came on June 30, 1970, when flight operations ceased and the base was deactivated as a naval air station, continuing in a reduced support role under the Navy.
Following deactivation, a long debate over the land’s use developed. Aviation supporters clashed with neighborhood groups and elected officials like Senator Warren G. Magnuson and Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman, who wanted a public park. The aviation supporters lost.
In 1975, the land was divided:
The park was dedicated in a driving rain on December 26, 1975.
The Navy’s remaining presence finally ended on September 28, 1995 — exactly 71 years to the day after the around-the-world flight returned.
In 2010, the Sand Point Naval Air Station Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2011, it was designated a Seattle landmark.
Today, historic Art Deco and Colonial Revival buildings from the 1930s-40s house community organizations, indoor sports facilities, and cultural centers in the hangars that once sheltered flying boats.
The World Flight Monument still stands at the park entrance, a granite reminder of the day Seattle launched the first aerial journey around the world.
For nearly 50 years, Sand Point Naval Air Station was the heart of Pacific Northwest naval aviation. It represented:
The boosters who worked so hard to build a naval air station may have sowed the seeds for its demise by placing it so close to Seattle. But their vision created a legacy that lives on in Magnuson Park, where families now picnic on grass that once felt the weight of Douglas World Cruisers preparing to circle the globe.
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