An interesting read for anybody interested in Chicago's history, aviation, or both. Long before I moved to Chicago I of course knew it well as the place where I would spend hours in airports between legs of flights. People always had an opinion on Midway vs. O'Hare, even if they'd otherwise never stepped foot in the state of Illinois. This book explores the history of Midway airport, and along the way gives a bit of insight into O'Hare as well, which was built because Midway couldn't be expanded to accommodate wide-body jet aircraft.

This book suffers from being too busy. There's a lot of information in here, including large photos, but there are also a bunch of sidebars and timelines that are integrated in with the text, making it difficult to follow the flow of the narrative itself. The text is also split into columns which works with the wide book pages, but adds to the chaotic confusion. If sidebars had had a different color background (as is standard in most books), and the timeline moved to an introduction or an appendix, I would have liked the book much better.

The narrative itself is interesting without going into too much rambling detail (which I find true of many other Chicagoland aviation history books). The author's grandfather was an FBO at Midway and helped to foster the budding aviation industry at the airport. Even though this book was published 15 years ago, not much has changed at Midway since then, making it still relevant today. ( )

This look at Chicago's lesser known airport, Midway, on the southwest side, had its interesting moments and some good photos.

I enjoyed hearing about the early days of aviation, as well as about the crash of the blimp, Wingfoot, into a bank building at Jackson and LaSalle in Chicago's Loop in 1919. I also enjoyed reading about the restaurants Marshall Field's opened at Midway and how, in those gentler times, people would go to the airport for a nice brunch.

I never realized that Chicagoland's first airport was in Maywood or that the blimp crash caused Grant Park not to be used as an airport afterwards.

Aviation buffs and Chicago history fans would probably enjoy this. ( )