This month marks 75 years of service at Mercer County Airport in Trenton, N.J. (TTN). On October 26 the airport will host a celebration marking the grand opening air fair at the facility on that date in 1929. The star-studded aerial event drew 30,000 aviation enthusiasts to the airport that Saturday. The airshow–featuring 1920s celebrities such as Amelia Earhart, Clarence Chamberlain, Al Williams and Jimmy Doolittle–was a safe one with no crashes. But the same could not be said for Wall Street two days later–the infamous Black Monday debacle that plunged the country into the Great Depression.
Located a few miles west of the New Jersey Turnpike, 60 miles from New York’s financial district and 30 miles from Philadelphia, Mercer County Airport has served in a variety of roles–and a couple of locations– for fully three-quarters of aviation’s history. TTN currently fills a niche as a prime home base for a few large corporate flight departments, features limited airline feeder service and supports a growing market segment of transient aircraft customers. The airport’s future character is subject to familiar factors–local politics, regional economy and national airspace development–that affect all airports to some degree.
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