Rice Lake Airport History

From a landing strip on a 20-acre farm field at the edge of Rice Lake to a facility of more than 800 acres with two hard-surface runways and the latest in landing systems is the story of the growth of aviation in Rice Lake over the past 75 years.

Barely a decade after the Wright Brothers had successfully taken its floppy-winged aircraft into the air at Kitty Hawk in 1903, stunt pilots were flying around Rice Lake and Barron County, putting on shows at the county fair and for other occasions, often using hayfields as their landing sites.

The first airport in Barron County was established in Rice Lake in 1929 on such a field rented from a family at the southwest edge of the city.  Activity grew at the airport which included a large hanger and flight instructions along with a sales agency for both the Aeronca and Stinson.  Because of the high activity, the local airport was listed on the Rand-McNally Air Trails Map.

In 1943, as victory in World War II seemed almost certain, efforts to enlarge the local field began because it seemed reasonable that servicemen returning to civilian life would want to learn to fly.  But the field was locked in by Main Street on the east, the Red Cedar River on the west and by water towers and smoke stacks on the north.

A new 160-acre site north of Rice Lake was purchased in 1944 and was developed, though only with a grass runway.  The south field was then closed a year later. The city's failure to put in a hard-surfaced runway on the north site may well have been its downfall because it allowed development of a privately owned field on he south edge of Rice Lake.

Near the close of World War II, a Rice Lake Navy Pilot, Lt. Cmdr. Durward Mommsen, was shuttling officers from Great Lakes, IL., to World Chamberlain Field in the Twin Cities for weekend training. He would then fly over Rice Lake to visit his parents, using an open field near their home at the south edge of town.  The family later bought that field and Cmdr. Mommsen invited other pilots to use it since it was more convenient than the north field which was several miles away.

While pilots continued to use both for a couple of years, slowly they migrated to the south field and eventually the north strip was abandoned in favor of the new Arrowhead Airport.  The north field was better suited for development, but the convenience of Arrowhead turned the tide.

The debate over whether the city should develop the north field or the one on the south continued into the 1960s. A county airport was proposed and a site west of Rice Lake found, but pilots at the four local airports, Rice Lake, Barron, Chetek and Cumberland, were opposed, each wanting the convenience for their own fields.

The Arrowhead Field also became surrounded by development with limited chance of expansion.  So, in 1982, after a city referendum to expand that field was turned down, the Airport Commission began seeking other sites of a new larger field. In 1985 the current site near Cameron was selected and ten years later, after battling through the demands of several state and federal regulatory bodies and very vocal opposition from residents in the area, the present airport was finally opened in the summer of 1995.

It featured a 4900-foot black-topped runway, a new terminal with attached repair hangar and 20 single plane hangars to replace the privately owned hangers pilots had left behind at Arrowhead. The grand opening was held over the Labor Day weekend in 1995 and the facility was named Carl's Field in honor of Carl Rindlisbacher, long-time manager and weatherman at Arrowhead.

Pilots, who had been around aviation a long time, felt the new field would be able to serve the aviation needs of the area for years, but found they were wrong. Aviation changed quickly from recreational flying to commercial use.  Twin-engine aircraft were quickly replacing single-engine planes at the airport and more and more jets were showing up.  Then even the jets wishing to use the field on a regular basis were becoming larger.

Within five years a cross-wind runway was built and plans were put into motion to enlarge almost every facet of the airport.  The main runway was lengthened to 5500 feet in 2001 and several new commercial hangars were built within a couple of years. Still the growth continued.  Fuel sales doubled within a few years and ten years after opening, sales topped 200,000 gallons compared to 84,000 the first full year of operation.

Among the latest accomplishments has been enlarging of the terminal, the installation of a ILS System in 2005, a new VOR-DME, fencing of the entire airport accomplished with federal funds and lengthening of a main taxi-way and lengthening of the main runway to 6700 feet along with widening it to 100 feet, a multi-million dollar project complete in the fall of 2006.

Plans are now underway to help the FBO expand into a larger facility and the Commission is hoping to attract an aviation related industry in the near future.

Written by: Bob Heffner