Lowell Airport North-South Strip

The north-south strip was the main landing strip of the Lowell Airport in its later years. The field never had paved runways. When it opened in 1928 it had two open landing areas: a lower field of about 3,000 by 2,000 feet on the flat land along the east bank of the Concord River, and an upper field of about 1,900 by 1,600 feet on the bluff above it, with the aircraft plant at its northeast corner. A 1931 directory gave a 1,500-foot east-west runway, and from 1932 the field was listed with a strip of 1,800 by 600 feet. A 1937 state plan of the field marks the northern part, in Lowell, as graded by the ERA, the federal relief program of the mid-1930s.

A United States Geological Survey aerial photograph of November 10, 1938 shows the strip as a long, pale, cleared band running a little east of north along the river bank, west of the plant buildings. It was about 1,850 to 1,900 feet long and 350 to 400 feet wide, with about two-thirds of its length in Billerica and its north end in Lowell. Its position here is fitted from that photograph and is approximate, to within about 150 feet. The field was listed as an auxiliary field in early 1942 and was gone by 1943, when the land became part of the Lowell Ordnance Plant.