Chehalis–Centralia Airport is a city-owned public use airport located in Chehalis, a city in Lewis County, Washington. The airport lies one mile (1.6 km) west of the town.
Originally begun on farmland in 1927, the airfield was known as Donahoe Field and it hosted a small golf course. The airfield was seized for military use during World War II and became known as the County-City Airport, with transfer of ownership and management between Centralia, Chehalis, and Lewis County in the early 1960s. Chehalis became sole-owner of the airport in 2013.
Once a hub for West Coast Airlines from the mid 1940s into the late 1950s, the airport does not host a commercial air service. , the airfield experiences approximately 50,000 flight operations per year.
The airport is situated in a floodplains and has experienced several inundations of floodwaters over the course of its history. Surrounded by a large levee first constructed during the second world war, various upgrades and expansions of flood control measures have been implemented in the 21st century.
History
20th century The area was first served by an airport during the early 1900s on the Borst family homestead located near the Skookumchuck River and present-day Fort Borst Park in Centralia. The city of Centralia began an official airfield near the park in 1926. Known as the Centralia Municipal Air Field, the site was dedicated in August 1928 but the airport endeavor ceased by the mid-1930s due to a combination of the Great Depression and competition with the Chehalis airport.
Chehalis–Centralia Airport began in 1927, when the Donahoe family, which also owned an adjoining golf course, sold the city of Chehalis and Lewis County approximately of their farm for over $13,000. The parcel, known as Paul Donahoe Field, was originally a dirt runway and was dedicated as an airstrip on May 21, 1927 during a ceremony attended by an estimated crowd of 4,000 people, with flying performances by a dozen aircraft, including military airships. The nine-hole golf course was also part of the dedication. In 1928, the first hangar was built. Existing in the present day, it measured at its beginning. During the same year, the county purchased an additional to expand the airfield.
The grounds contained three airstrips and buildings in Chehalis were marked with directional arrows. The airstrips, in a north-to-south alignment, measured and by 1931 were considered to be grass and sod. The airport contained modern amenities of the time, including a fuel supply, telephone, and a weather reporting station.
The city of Chehalis was one of 11 locations, which included Portland and Seattle, to receive a 7,500,000 candlepower beacon during a 1926 initiative to improve night flying for air mail on the Pacific Coast. The airport was approved to be lighted for night flying beginning in August 1929. The $6,000 project was authorized and funded by the United States Department of Commerce's airway division. By September, the airfield, described as a municipal airport, was leased to the federal government and the installation of the lighting began. The grounds were also prepared for use as an emergency airstrip. Management of the airport was undertaken by the St. John Air Service from the late 1920s into the mid-1930s. During this time, the Queen of the Cowlitz, a sister airship to Charles Lindbergh's, Spirit of St. Louis, was based at Donahoe Field.
In 1941, the airfield, still listed as hosting three airstrips, was increased in size after an additional were purchased. By the start of World War II, the airport covered , and became known as the County-City Airport. During the war, the federal government seized the airport, using it as a training facility for new pilots and a practice strip for Boeing bombers, and also developed two runways. In 1959, Chehalis annexed the airport land and the following year, ownership of the airfield was officially transferred to the city and the site run cooperatively with the county. After several local government delays, by September 1961 an official airport partnership between Centralia, Chehalis, and Lewis County was formed. The second runway was decommissioned beginning with efforts in 1978 to convert the land into a commercial area for retail businesses.
21st century Centralia withdrew from the joint operating agreement in 2004 due to concerns over contract violations, liability, and cost-benefits. Lewis County, which had been a 50% co-owner of the airport with the city of Chehalis since 1961, also relinquished its rights to the airfield in late 2013 despite opposition from the Chehalis-Centralia Airport board. The county considered the joint-ownership to be cumbersome and unnecessary. Concerns included that county involvement was possibly hindering growth and funding or completion of flood mitigation projects. Additionally, the city of Chehalis had, for some time, almost complete oversight and interest of the airport. The transfer of full-ownership to Chehalis was official on January 1, 2014.
The airport was granted the right in September 2009 to remove a bald eagle's nest and a grove of cottonwood and fir trees approximately north of the runway; the nest and forested area were considered a possible hindrance to flight operations. The nest removal, the first allowed in the state since bald eagles were delisted from the Endangered Species Act in 2007, was approved by various state and federal agencies. The "eviction" was completed in January 2010; continued hazard monitoring was required when ospreys moved into the area immediately afterwards.
In 2020, the airport was granted a loan through the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), with an estimated completion cost of $1.48 million, to construct two, above-ground fuel storage tanks, with additional requirements towards environmental hazard mitigation, emergency preparedness, contamination control, and "cultural resource monitoring".
The Aviation Division of WSDOT chose Chehalis–Centralia Airport in 2021 as one of six beta-test sites in Washington state to be used as an airfield for electric aircraft. The same year, the airport was awarded $59,000 through the Airport Rescue Grant via the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic economic hardships.
Airport landholdings expanded in late 2023 with a $316,000 purchase of a surplus property owned by the city. Known as the Barnes property, it is located directly south of Airport Lake and though the land is within the levee, the area is prone to minor flooding due to a small creek on the grounds. No immediate plans for the usage of the new property by the airport were proposed. Expansion of the northern section of airport was begun in 2024 under a plan known as the Chehalis Hub for Aviation Innovation and Sustainable Energy (CHAISE), a project meant to help the airport to produce renewable energy and as a site for the demonstration of new aviation technology.
The Chehalis city council formally adopted a required FAA master plan in February 2025, the first since 2001. The airport is estimated to reach approximately 70,000 flight operations per year by 2045.
Accidents and incidents Four people were killed in a September 1951 plane crash. The Stinson Voyager caught fire a minute after take off from the airfield. In September 1959, the body of Sherry Edgell, a nine year-old girl from Centralia, was found near the airport. The murder of Edgell remains unsolved.
During the Columbus Day storm of 1962, 13 aircraft were destroyed due to wind gusts reaching as high as . A police chief suffered a skull fracture when he was struck by debris after one of the hangars blew apart during the storm.
In March 1991, a passenger died during the crash of a Piper PA-24 Comanche into a building near the airport. The plane, which was found later to have an "improperly seated crankshaft gear" that led to other failures of the craft, was diverting to the Chehalis-Centralia Airport for an emergency landing. A father and son survived a plane crash outside the Chehalis-Centralia Airport in January 1997. The plane dove nose first after its engine died during flight. The Piper Arrow clipped its wing on the ground of a corn field during the attempted landing.
A two-seat, Grumman American AA-1 single-engine plane crashed into a pond south of the runway in December 2002. The crash was caused due to an attempt to land under an incoming fog bank. Both passengers, a father and son, survived, but the older man suffered brain injuries stemming from being underwater for an extended time.
Three men died after their twin-engine Cessna, which departed from the airport, crashed near Glenoma in October 2010. The pilot, Ken Sabin, was a board member of the Chehalis-Centralia Airport. He reported a loss of power to an engine. The airport board proposed the following year that a portion of Airport Way, which leads to the terminal area, be renamed in Sabin's honor. Another loss of life after a crash occurred in August 2014 when the pilot of a Loehle 5151 Mustang crashed into a local business parking lot across the interstate, setting fire to the aircraft and several automobiles. Despite ideal flight conditions, it was concluded that the takeoff was "unclean" as the plane was reported to bounce off the tarmac. The plane, which flew without a filed flight plan, achieved lift but struggled with instability, making an extreme bank before crashing.
Flooding
During the Second World War, the United States Department of War built levees around the airfield and in 1942 installed a levee pump.
Two large floods in 1990 and 1996 caused severe inundations at the airfield, damaging some aircraft. The events, in association with levee regulations at airports, led to of fill added to the grounds meant to raise buildings above the high-water mark of a flood event.
During severe flooding due to the Great Coastal Gale of 2007, the airfield was underwater by as much and of silt and mud covered the runway. During the ordeal, the original 1942 pump failed, forcing an intentional break of the levee that led to increased damages in the community. In preparation of a 2009 flood, fifty aircraft that could not be evacuated were moved to atop the levee.
A modern, electric two-pump station was completed in 2018 with funding provided by the Chehalis River Basin Authority at a cost of $1.14 million. The pumps, able to siphon as much as 12,000 gallons per minute, worked without fail during a January 2022 flood event.
Notable aviators The earliest recorded aviator in the area was John Brown, who attempted to construct an airplane at the Tynan Opera House in Chehalis. However, there is no record that the apparatus ever achieved flight. The first aviator to achieve flight in Lewis County was Claude Berlin, a local grocer who undertook flying lessons to become a licensed pilot. He officially piloted a Curtiss biplane over Centralia on May 30, 1912 during the city's Hub City Festival, attempting to bless new buildings by dropping champagne bottles during the flight. He hit at least one of the targets. In 1914, Gustav (George) Stromer took flight during Chehalis' Fourth of July celebrations, and after several issues of mechanics and strong winds, managed to land on the fields at the Green Hill School. Stromer would perform the first recorded night flights in the region, and after a week of performances, survived a crash north of Centralia at Waunch Prairie, ending his flying pursuits in the Twin Cities.
Other early aviators include the first woman pilot, listed only as Mrs. Crown, and Kenneth Arnold, famed for his report on flying saucers in 1947.
Scott Crossfield