Old Denver airport - Stapleton (Delta: mobile home, theatre, taxi)

[OzzyRules]

I visited the old airport several times in my youth. I was looking at pictures of it and was surprised to learn that it as actually a NEW airport, and that the old one no longer remained.

Does the new terminal (inside) resemble the old one at all? Because it looked so familiar.

Thanks for any information.

[bluescreen73]

Originally Posted by OzzyRules

I visited the old airport several times in my youth. I was looking at pictures of it and was surprised to learn that it as actually a NEW airport, and that the old one no longer remained.

Does the new terminal (inside) resemble the old one at all? Because it looked so familiar.

Thanks for any information.

I flew out of Stapleton about 3 months before it closed - Thanksgiving 1994. DIA's terminal is much more open and expansive than Stapleton's was and the concourses and gates are separate from the terminal itself - although concourse A is connected to the terminal via a skyway.

Someone with more direct exposure to Stapleton can probably go into greater detail but from my recollections I'd say they're both fairly dissimilar.

[downtownnola]

Although I did not live in Denver at the time, I also flew through Stapleton with my parents when I was young. I have lots of great memories of the airport and great memories of flying during my childhood in general (this was back during the 80s and 90s when flying still felt magical).

Stapleton was much closer to downtown Denver. The airport had been there since the 20s, and was expanded several times as the city grew. Eventually, the city grew around the airport and they essentially ran out of space, so the city of Denver annexed a huge piece of land northeast of the city and built Denver International Airport there. DIA opened and Stapleton closed in 1995. Stapleton has since undergone redevelopment with new housing, retail centers and business/industrial parks.

The new airport is much prettier IMO, but it's basically in the middle of nowhere. I came across this site that has several photos of Stapleton when it was still in operation, very interesting!

STAPLETON AIRPORT

[OzzyRules]

Originally Posted by downtownnola

Although I did not live in Denver at the time, I also flew through Stapleton with my parents when I was young. I have lots of great memories of the airport and great memories of flying during my childhood in general (this was back during the 80s and 90s when flying still felt magical).

Stapleton was much closer to downtown Denver. The airport had been there since the 20s, and was expanded several times as the city grew. Eventually, the city grew around the airport and they essentially ran out of space, so the city of Denver annexed a huge piece of land northeast of the city and built Denver International Airport there. DIA opened and Stapleton closed in 1995. Stapleton has since undergone redevelopment with new housing, retail centers and business/industrial parks.

The new airport is much prettier IMO, but it's basically in the middle of nowhere. I came across this site that has several photos of Stapleton when it was still in operation, very interesting!

STAPLETON AIRPORT

Thanks! There are a lot galleries to go through, and lots of airplane pics, but this (link below) was the area I was most curious about I believe.

I guess you would call it the "atrium." And the areas near and around this.

http://www.aviationphotographs.net/S...rds/pc-026.jpg

[davidv]

Stapleton International Airport was configured much differently than DIA. Stapleton had a terminal building with connected concourses radiating out from the terminal area. The passengers walked from the check-in area to the gates with a security station at each concourse.

DIA has a much larger terminal building with satellite concourses. In this configuration, passengers check in, pass through security, and board a train that takes them to the concourses. This actually allows for more efficient security, and once a passenger passes through security, he/she can travel between concourses without having to go through security again.

While many people complain about DIA, they would complain even more if Stapleton were still operational. Over 52 million people fly into and out of DIA each year. Stapleton, with its crowded terminal and inadequate runways served about 40 million people each year. DIA is built for expansion; expansion at Stapleton would have been cost prohibitive and only delayed an inevitable move to a bigger airport.

[Willy702]

My recollection of it was somewhat similar interior and layout to what you see in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport today. I remember having to do a connection at Stapleton back in the mid 80s and we were in lets say at the very end of Terminal A and Terminal D was where we were headed. No train back then so you had to walk and walk and walk. It took almost 30 minutes just to walk from one gate to the other. I remember that well because I wanted badly to stop in the shop and get something for the Broncos but we didn't have time as our connection was like an hour. I made my father feel so bad about it he bought he a Broncos starter jacket for Christmas

[BadKittehs]

I have spent quite a bit of time at both Stapleton and DIA, and they are not in any way similar. The poster above is right in that Stapleton involved a lot of walking. DIA is a beautiful airport, but Stapleton was closer to town and easier to get to. DIA is much larger than Stapleton, and has an open feeling that Stapleton did not have.

My cousin used to live in a mobile home park where one of the runways at Stapleton is now located. It was really nice out there, quiet and isolated. They were forced to sell their land to the airport.

I also remember right before they opened DIA there was an airshow out on the runways. It was cool to be out there and see everything before it opened, and the airshow was great. However the parking was horrible and it took 2 hours to get out of there when it was over.

[KaaBoom]

Originally Posted by OzzyRules

I visited the old airport several times in my youth. I was looking at pictures of it and was surprised to learn that it as actually a NEW airport, and that the old one no longer remained.

Does the new terminal (inside) resemble the old one at all? Because it looked so familiar.

Thanks for any information.

It was nothing the same. Stapleton was a nightmare airport, seven miles east of Downtown. The only good thing about it was that it was located close in. It was a small old 1940s municipal airport, which had been expanded into a massive sprawling international airport. The terminal was built in a totally random fashion. After checking in, it could be a 20 min. walk to the departure gate. At least security was never a problem. You just walked through the metal detector and went on your way.

I do think it was probably a pretty fantastic airport until it started to get too bloated in the 1950s. Some of my favorite memories of it. The viewing room located between concourses B and C. You had to pay 25¢ to go through a turnstile to get in, but it was well worth the money. There you could sit in comfortable theatre style seats, and see almost the entire tarmac out the large windows. You could watch the planes leaving all the gates, and watch them taxi all the way out to the runways. It was a great way to kill time waiting for your flight.

The other part of of the airport that I loved was Concourse A. That part of the airport was like stuck in a time warp. I don't think it had ever been remodeled or upgraded since the 1950s. It wasn't really even a concourse. It was just a single room, at ground level with about eight doors leading outside, that people walked through to board smaller commuter planes on the tarmac.

[OzzyRules]

Thanks. I never set foot outside the airport whenever I used to stop there for a connecting flight. You never think about some places might one day be gone.

It's strange that in the flights I've had since the new airport was built, I have never had a connection in Denver. You would think that with a bigger airport they might have more. But my connections more recently have usually been in Salt Lake or someplace.

[SkyDog77]

Originally Posted by OzzyRules

Thanks. I never set foot outside the airport whenever I used to stop there for a connecting flight. You never think about some places might one day be gone.

It's strange that in the flights I've had since the new airport was built, I have never had a connection in Denver. You would think that with a bigger airport they might have more. But my connections more recently have usually been in Salt Lake or someplace.

You must fly Delta. If you flew United, Frontier or even Southwest, you would have better chance of coming to Denver.