Bowman Field 1919, Devonian fossil reef, and the only Ohio River drop
KLOU Bowman Field, established in 1919, is Kentucky's first commercial airport and one of the oldest continuously operating airfields in North America. Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis here in 1927 before 10,000 spectators; the Art Deco terminal went up in 1929; the Army ran a flight training school here through World War II; in 1960 Flying Magazine, using FAA statistics, named it America's busiest local-traffic airport; and in fall 1963 its hangars played the base of Pussy Galore's Flying Circus in Goldfinger. Five miles southwest, KSDF sits across the river from the Falls of the Ohio: a 390-million-year-old Devonian reef, the largest exposed Devonian fossil bed in the world, best seen at late-summer low water, beside the McAlpine Locks where the river drops 26 feet through the only natural obstruction in its 981-mile run. Aviation and geology, end to end.