The Grand Central Air Terminal was the Los Angeles terminus of the Pan-American Airways and the Mexican Aviation Company. It also served as a United States Customs port of air entry. The offices and waiting rooms were in a tan stucco Terminal Building, on the Air Way side of the 220-acre landing field. The government-approved Grand Central Flying School had its headquarters at the field, around which were several private flying schools and many aircraft shops. The air squad of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office was based here; hangars provided space for private planes.
The “crate” in which Douglas Corrigan “lost his way” on an announced flight from New York City to California in 1938, landing next day in Ireland, was pieced together and tuned up on this field. The field, established in 1928 by a small group of aviation enthusiasts, passed the following year into the hands of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation which enlarged and developed it. It was later been superseded in large part as a transcontinental and international airport by the Union Air Terminal at Burbank (now Bob Hope Airport).
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