College Park is the town within which lies the University of Maryland at College Park (UMCP). The college was charted in 1856 as the Maryland Agricultural College and is the State's Land Grant College. In 1858 for the price of $21,400, 420 acres of Charles Calvert's Riverdale plantation was purchased to construct the college.
The official dedication day of the college was October 6, 1859 and enrolled its first 34 students. On July 11, 1862 the first degree was awarded. Also in 1862, President Lincoln signed the Morrill Land Grant Act providing for federal support for state colleges. In 1888 the college's first recorded intercollegiate baseball games against St. john's College and the Navel Academy occured.
In 1909 the Wright Brothers designed the College Park Airport which is now the "World's Oldest Continuously Operating Airport." Orville and Wilbur Wright set out to teach the first two Army officers to fly, it became the site of the first Army Aviation School in 1911. The College Park Aviation Museum houses a collection of aircraft and artifacts documenting the many historical events for which the airport is also known as the "Field of Firsts" and "Cradle of Aviation."
From the first steps toward the new world of flight by the U.S. Army to the advent of instrument flying, the little airport at College Park was making headline news on a regular basis. Here are just a few of the pages of accomplishment commemorated at the College Park Aviation Museum.
The College Park Airport claims the first...
woman passenger in the United States - 1909
military officer to fly a government airplane - 1909
test of a bomb dropping device from an airplane - 1911
test of a machine gun from an aircraft - 1911
mile high flight by a military aviator pilot - (Lt., later General, "Hap" Arnold) - 1912
U.S. Air Mail Service - 1918
controlled helicopter flight - 1924
radio navigational aids developed & tested by Bureau of Standards - 1927
