Photo: RontheRubio, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Travelers flying into Marquette land about 20 miles south of the city, near Gwinn. The airport is on the grounds of the former K.I. Sawyer Air Force Base.
The base
K.I. Sawyer was a Strategic Air Command base during the Cold War, home to bombers and tankers. It was named for Kenneth Ingalls Sawyer, a Marquette County road commissioner who had pushed for an airport there.
The base was one of the area’s biggest employers. When the Pentagon closed it in 1995, the loss of thousands of military and civilian jobs hit the county hard.
The airport
Marquette County moved commercial flights from the old county airport near Negaunee to the former base in 1999. The long runway built for bombers could handle any commercial plane.
Today the airport has daily service to major hubs. Its passenger numbers matter to tourism, NMU and businesses that need to fly people in and out.
The rest of the base
Much of the former base became a business and residential area. Old hangars and buildings house companies, and former military housing was sold. Redevelopment has been slow and uneven, but the property is still a major piece of the county’s economic plans.
