How the 4th busiest US airport got its name

Chicago is one of the largest and most iconic cities in the United States. With the opening of its first airport in 1926, the North American city has a long and storied aviation history.

Nowadays, when you fly through the city, odds are the airport you'll arrive at (if you're not flying Southwest Airlines ) is Chicago O'Hare International Airport . Let's take a look at America's fourth-busiest international airport and how it got its name.

Like many major cities across the United States, the history of aviation in Chicago started with the first "airline" flights arriving in the area in the early 1920s.

During this time, airlines primarily made money through airmail flights, with one or two seats being added to planes to accommodate the few wealthy passengers who could afford to fly.

Orchard Field to Chicago Airport

Since 1926, the city of Chicago was served by Chicago Municipal Airport, or as it came to be known after World War II, Midway International Airport.

In the years leading up to the Second World War, it was realized that more than just one airport would be needed for air travel to continue to grow in the city as it expanded outwards.

Due to its proximity to Chicago and rather compact layout, the decision was made for the city to find a new location to begin the construction of an airport that would better serve Chicago's needs while leaving room for expansion.

Due to the onset of World War II, little progress was made until after the war, when a former Douglas aircraft manufacturing plant with four runways on the then outskirts of the bustling city was chosen to house Chicago's primary airport.

Renamed after a brilliant aviator

In 1949, the Chicago city council renamed Orchard Field to Chicago O'Hare International Airport in honor of deceased Lieutenant Commander Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare.

Born on March 13, 1914, he was the son of famous lawyer Edward Joseph O'Hare, who was shot in 1939 supposedly by gangsters as punishment for giving incriminating evidence that put the notorious gangster Al Capone in prison.

After graduating from Western Military Academy in 1932, he enrolled in the United States Naval Academy the following year, serving two years on the battleship USS New Mexico from 1937 to 1939.

O'Hare began his career in naval aviation with training at Naval Air Station Pensacola in 1939, learning how to fly the N3N-1 and Stearman NS-1 biplanes.

O'Hare's talent quickly became apparent, and he was promoted to learning aerobatics and aerial gunnery in the Boeing P-12 biplane.

Soon after, he continued to move up the ranks, flying more advanced and modern (for the time) aircraft before the US joined World War II.

After Pearl Harbor, O'Hare was called from reserve and began his service on the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga before being transferred to the USS Lexington after the former was hit by a Japanese torpedo while patrolling south of Hawaii.

After flying countless missions for two years, O'Hare eventually found himself on the USS Enterprise, possibly the most famous and prized US aircraft carrier of World War II. On the night of November 26, 1943, he went missing while on a night mission.

To this day, his aircraft hasn't been found.

The year before, in 1942, O'Hare was awarded the US Medal of Honor for his "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in aerial combat" during an air battle in which he repeatedly attacked an oncoming formation of Japanese bomber aircraft.

This made him the first naval flying ace of the Second World War.

In 1949, Orchard Field was renamed in honor of O'Hare, but kept its three letter airport code, ORD, in homage to the airport's original name. This airport code has stuck ever since.

Opening and early years

During the design phase of the passenger terminal at O'Hare Airport, there were two primary competing designs that could be chosen.

One was the typical pre-war terminal design, which involved building one single, linear terminal similar to Berlin Tempelhof which would grow outwards in a linear or semi-circle-like shape as the airport grew.

The other design, based on a (at the time) revolutionary idea with so-called "split-finger terminals", involved building a main terminal attached to "wings", or concourses sticking out onto the tarmac from the main check-in, arrival, and departure hall.

The latter idea was chosen by the City of Chicago as a means of future-proofing the city's premiere international airport.

Besides its novel design, O'Hare was also built with direct highway access for cars and rail access to the city's downtown, as well as underground refueling. All of these design aspects are still in use at major international airports today.

Scheduled passenger airline service began in 1955. Growth was initially slow, with the airport serving just 176,902 passengers in its opening year, before picking up in the early 1960s following the opening of the airport's main terminal in 1961.

The following year, all passenger airline services were moved to O'Hare from Midway International Airport, lending the burgeoning airport a boost of 10 million passengers, which made it the "World's Busiest Airport" in 1962.

Just 11 years later, the number of passengers flying through O'Hare had tripled to 37.6 million, far exceeding the second-busiest airport in the world at the time. By 1976, the booming airport had become a behemoth, with seven runways.

In the same year, the "Airport Delay Task Force" allowed the behemoth international airport to have the first "triple-simultaneous runway operations", meaning three runways could be used for arrivals and departures at once, greatly increasing efficiency and reducing flight delays.

1984 finally saw a direct rail connection open up to Chicago's downtown directly from the terminals at O'Hare on the CTA "L" Train's Blue Line.

This finally fulfilled the airport architects' dream of a connection to the downtown of the city.

Blue Line trains currently run all the way to Forest Park or UIC Halsted through the center of Chicago on a frequency of 10 to 20 trains per hour during weekdays, and 5 to 10 on weekends, holidays, and nights.

The rest of the airport's history is mostly marked by terminal renovations and the opening of its AirTrain, called the "Airport Transit System", connecting all the terminals.

The fourth-biggest airport in the US

Currently, Chicago O'Hare International Airport operates as the fourth busiest in the United States and the 5th most connected airport in the world, serving just under 75 million passengers in 2024.

Despite the number of aircraft movements at the airport, in its almost 80-year history, the facility has only ever seen 10 major crashes. Of those, just one has killed more than 50 people.

On May 25, 1979, American Airlines flight 191 crashed shortly after takeoff from O'Hare Airport after one of the engines detached from the wing of the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 operating the flight.

The crash killed all 271 passengers and crew onboard. Two weeks after the horrific accident, the FAA made the decision to ground the aircraft type, with airlines around the world following suit.

The airport acts as a massive hub for United Airlines and American Airlines . United primarily utilizes terminals one and two for North American flights to Canada, the US, and Hawaii.

Meanwhile, American Airlines utilizes terminals one and three at the airport and serves the same destinations as United plus a few more in the Caribbean.

Not to mention the treasure trove of international destinations, the airport serves from as far as Delhi to Dubai. Both carriers utilize aircraft from as small as the CRJ-700 to as large as the Boeing 787 .