Airport Of The Month – Winsted

When runways were invented, they were mostly grass, at least in Minnesota.

A strip of land was graded and rolled until it was fairly smooth and flat, then grass was planted and a turf runway came into existence. Not much engineering was involved and the quality was pretty variable.

Winsted Municipal Airport had a turf runway, but the subsoil was rather poor and the turf surface would get rutted and have a "washboard" effect. The drainage needed some work and the lighting system became badly out of date. Not an ideal situation and one that required a lot of maintenance.

The city started looking...