Air & Space Towns: Where America Learned to Fly
The Wright brothers made the airplane a practical invention at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in 1904 and 1905, the National Park Service says. That’s the kind of fact that gets people into a car. You want to see the field, the airship hangar, the rocket factory, the town where Mission Control lives, the desert road out to a spaceport.
The names on those towns are much older than flight, and most of them came from people. There’s a general who’d just won at San Jacinto, a settler who built a cabin by a big spring, a surveyor who spelled Cleaveland with an a, an investor’s son, and a tavern keeper’s little girl named Elmira. Others are Native names, like Wichita, Pensacola, Tucson and Seattle. Akron took a Greek word for high, and Pasadena picked its name from a list of Chippewa words that came in the mail. Then there’s the gateway to Spaceport America, a town that renamed itself for a radio quiz show.
This page is for you if you’re planning a trip around air and space history and want the story behind the name on the map. Each stop links to our article on how the place got its name, with a short note on why it’s here.
How we picked these. The town is home to a key aviation or spaceflight site, or an official source places that site near the town or sends visitors through it. Think NASA or FAA centers, historic aircraft factories, airfields, airship hangars, balloon launch fields and major air and space museums. Each story below lists the source that confirms it.
Chemung County, NYElmira, New York, carries the first name of a little girl whose father ran a tavern there back when the place was still called Newtown.
DocumentedA 2019 New York Assembly resolution honors the National Soaring Museum at Harris Hill and the Elmira area's role in American soaring. Source: 2019-K386 (New York State Senate)
Summit County, OHGeneral Simon Perkins wanted a name for his new canal town that a punning neighbor couldn't joke about, and Akron, Ohio, got a Greek word for high.
DocumentedThe National Park Service says the airships Akron and Macon were both built inside Akron's Goodyear Airdock, finished in 1929. Source: Goodyear Airdock (U.S. National Park Service)
Cuyahoga County, OHCleveland, Ohio, is missing a letter: the surveyor it's named for, Moses Cleaveland, spelled his name with an a.
DocumentedNASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, set up in 1941, has worked on both aviation and space exploration for decades. Source: About NASA's Glenn Research Center (NASA)
Montgomery County, OHBefore Dayton, Ohio, existed, land buyers planned a town called Venice on the same spot, and they meant to rename Mad River the Tiber.
DocumentedDayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, run by the National Park Service, honors aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright. Source: Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service)
Madison County, ALFor its first two years on paper, Huntsville, Alabama, was named Twickenham, after the English home of the poet Alexander Pope.
DocumentedNASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville has delivered propulsion systems and flagship launch vehicles for over six decades. Source: Marshall Space Flight Center (NASA)
Escambia County, FLThe people who gave Pensacola, Florida, its name were gone when Spain built a town on their bay in the 1690s. The name is Choctaw for "hair people."
DocumentedThe National Park Service calls Naval Air Station Pensacola the first permanent U.S. naval air station and first Navy pilot training center. Source: Pensacola Naval Air Station Historic District (U.S. National Park Service)
Orleans Parish, LANew Orleans had a storekeeper before it had a store: in October 1717, France appointed one for a post still to be built at a place called New Orleans.
DocumentedNASA's Michoud Assembly Facility, which the agency calls America's Rocket Factory, is in New Orleans. Source: Michoud Assembly Facility (NASA)
Harris County, TXThe Allen brothers put the Town of Houston, Texas, up for sale in August 1836, while Sam Houston was still a candidate for president of the new republic.
DocumentedNASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston is home to America's astronaut corps and the Mission Control Center. Source: Johnson Space Center (NASA)
Sedgwick County, KSWichita, Kansas, is named for the Wichita people, who camped on the Little Arkansas River during the Civil War. What the word means, nobody's pinned down.
DocumentedClyde Cessna, Walter Beech and Lloyd Stearman helped start Travel Air in Wichita in 1925, and the city's chamber began saying Air Capital. Source: Travel Air Manufacturing Company (Kansapedia, Kansas Historical Society)
Oklahoma County, OKOklahoma City's post office didn't carry the name Oklahoma City until 1923. Before that, the mail went to plain "Oklahoma."
DocumentedEvery U.S. civilian air traffic controller has trained at the FAA's Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. Source: Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center (The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture)
Bernalillo County, NMThe governor who founded Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1706 named it for the viceroy, the Duke of Alburquerque, and got scolded for not asking first.
DocumentedThe city's Balloon Fiesta Park is home to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and the Anderson Abruzzo Balloon Museum. Source: Balloon Fiesta Park (City of Albuquerque)
Sierra County, NMTruth or Consequences, New Mexico, is named for a radio quiz show. Until 1950 it was Hot Springs, and its voters swapped names on a radio host's offer.
DocumentedSpaceport America is about 20 mi (32 km) southeast of town, and its guided tours leave from a visitor center here. Source: Visit (Spaceport America)
Pima County, AZTucson, Arizona, took its name from an O'odham village on the Santa Cruz River. Old books translate it as black creek, dark spring, or black base.
DocumentedThe only intact full-size Martin PBM Mariner, a Smithsonian aircraft, is on loan to the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson. Source: See These Pioneering Air- and Spacecraft in Your Town (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)
Los Angeles County, CAPasadena, California, got its name in the mail: a colony leader wrote to a college friend working as a missionary, who sent back a list of Chippewa words.
DocumentedNASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory sits in the foothills near Pasadena and is managed by Caltech, which is in Pasadena. Source: Who We Are (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
King County, WALong before Seattle got its name from Chief Seattle, a trader at Fort Nisqually was writing the chief's name as "See yat."
DocumentedBoeing's early workers built planes in the Red Barn, at the old Heath Shipyards on the Duwamish River in Seattle. Source: Boeing and Early Aviation in Seattle, 1909-1919 (HistoryLink.org)
Snohomish County, WAEverett, Washington, is named for Everett Colby, the son of a New York investor who helped bankroll the city.
DocumentedBoeing says its Everett main assembly building went up in 1967 to build the 747; the site has also made the 767, 777 and 787. Source: Everett Production Facility (Boeing)
Sources for this page
- History & Culture, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)
- Visit (Spaceport America) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)
- Johnson Space Center (NASA) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)
- Goodyear Airdock (U.S. National Park Service) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)
- Michoud Assembly Facility (NASA) (accessed Oct 31, 2026)