The most recent Sunday Pantagraph “Page from Our Past” installment examined the fascinating history of Chenoa airport, which opened in 1947 as McLean County’s second commercial airfield (after Bloomington’s).Here are two more photographs from the rural airport’s second annual air show, held August 29, 1948. Air show emcee Tommy Bartlett (in the white T-shirt) can be seen in the first photograph regaling some of the 2,500 spectators that gathered on the grounds to watch some 50 private planes spend the day on the airfield’s turf runways or in the skies above. Bartlett, who at the time was a Chicago radio personality, would soon enjoy much greater fame as a water skiing impresario based in the Wisconsin Dells.
