Hartford–Brainard Airport
airport in Connecticut, United States of America
Hartford–Brainard Airport (IATA: HFD, ICAO: KHFD, FAA LID: HFD) is a towered public airport three miles (5 km) southeast of downtown Hartford, in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. It is owned by the Connecticut Airport Authority. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2017–2021 categorized it as a regional reliever airport facility.
The airport is named after former mayor Newton C. Brainard.
History
Brainard Field was opened in 1921 in a former cow pasture in the southeast Hartford Neighborhood of South Meadows. In the early 20th century, Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh landed there to great acclaim.
For its first decade, officials limited the airfield's use primarily to small passenger flights, but in 1933, city officials opened Brainard to commercial traffic. Passenger airlines, such as American Airlines, Eastern Airlines, and Colonial Airlines served Brainard. However, the airport could not handle the large Douglas DC-3 and heavier planes that became common by the 1930s. The weight of the planes was too much for grass runways; later, the city would install a blacktop runway.
“Hartford–Brainard Airport” enters the record as airport in Connecticut, United States of America. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hartford, Brainard and Airport can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Hartford–Brainard Airport” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Hartford, Brainard and Airport provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3886884. VIAF identifies the subject as 250994385. The Library of Congress control number is no2012080374. Authority coordinates are 41.737, -72.649. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2021, 1921 and 1933.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
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Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Hartford–Brainard Airport” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.