Prewar and wartime years (1929–1945) Stapleton opened in 1929 as
Denver Municipal Airport on October 17. The development of the airport was spearheaded by Denver mayor
Benjamin F. Stapleton and Improvements and Parks Department manager Charles Vail. Prior to the new airport's opening, Denver had been served by a number of smaller facilities, including an airstrip along Smith Road in Aurora (first used in 1911), an airfield at 26th Avenue and Oneida Street,
Lowry Field near 38th Avenue and Dahlia Street, and Denver Union Airport at 46th Avenue east of Colorado Boulevard. In the late 1930s the facilities consisted of two hangars and a small administration building mainly used for
air mail processing.
United Airlines and
Continental Airlines began service in 1937. as airline president
Robert F. Six believed that the airline should have its headquarters in a large city with a potential base of customers. Continental moved its headquarters to
Los Angeles in July 1963. The airfield was renamed
Stapleton Airfield on 25 August 1944, in honor of Mayor Stapleton, who had served from 1923-1931 and from 1935 until 1947. Denver then had five airlines: United flew across the country, Continental flew south and east,
Braniff flew to Texas,
Frontier flew to smaller cities north and south from Denver, and
Western connected Denver to Minneapolis and to
Edmonton in Canada. TWA and Central arrived in 1956. The April 1957 OAG shows 38 daily United departures, 12 for Continental, 7 Braniff, 7 Frontier, 7 Western, 5 TWA and 1 Central. The jet age arrived in May 1959 when Continental began operating
Boeing 707s to Stapleton, initially under weight restrictions due to Stapleton's runway weight capacity. (Scheduled 707s started in August 1959.) runway 17L opened sometime between 1975 and 1980. Stapleton adopted the "International" name in 1964, but its first nonstop international flight came in 1968, when Western began flights to
Calgary. United and TWA served both coasts nonstop, while Continental and Western nonstop flights only extended to the western half of the country. Concourse D was built in 1972.
Post-deregulation (1978–1985) After
deregulation, Denver's four major airlines developed hubs at Stapleton. United occupied Concourse B, Continental and Western occupied Concourse C and Frontier occupied Concourse D. Western flew nonstop between Denver and London in 1981 and 1982, but then shifted resources to
Salt Lake City and
Los Angeles; Denver had ceased to be a Western hub by the time
Delta acquired that airline in 1987. In 1983
Arrow Air introduced transatlantic services to London and Manchester, and
Condor flew a weekly charter to Frankfurt, Germany.
Southwest Airlines and
People Express tried low-cost service to Denver in the mid-1980s, but Southwest withdrew and People Express was acquired by Continental. In September 1982 the first revenue flight of the
Boeing 767 arrived at Stapleton, a United flight from
O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. During the energy boom of the early 1980s, several skyscrapers were built in downtown Denver, including Republic Plaza (Denver's tallest at 714′). Due to Stapleton's location east of downtown, the
Federal Aviation Administration imposed a building height restriction of 700'-715' (depending on the building's position). This allowed an unimpeded glide slope for runways (8L/26R) and (8R/26L). The height restriction was lifted in 1995, well after the city's skyscrapers had been erected.
Decommissioning (1985–1995) s of the Denver-based
Aspen Airways at Stapleton in 1986 in 1991 By the 1980s, plans were under way to replace Stapleton, which had a number of problems, including: • inadequate lateral separation between runways, leading to long waits during instrument-flight operations • little or no room for other airlines that wanted to use Stapleton for new destinations (one such example was
Southwest Airlines, now a large carrier at
Denver International Airport) • a lawsuit over aircraft noise, brought by residents of the nearby
Park Hill community • legal threats by
Adams County, to block a runway extension into
Rocky Mountain Arsenal lands The Colorado General Assembly brokered a deal in 1985 to annex a plot of land in Adams County into the city of Denver, and use that land to build a new airport. Adams County voters approved the plan in 1988, and Denver voters approved the plan in a 1989 referendum. To combat congestion, runway 18/36 was added in the 1980s and the terminal was again expanded with the $250-million (or $58-million according to the
New York Times), 24-gate Concourse E opening in 1988, despite Denver's replacement airport already being under construction. By the early 1990s, Concourses A and B were exclusively used by United and United Express; Continental used most of Concourses C and D, and most other airlines moved to Concourse E. In the early 1990s, several charter services to the United Kingdom were introduced, and
Martinair inaugurated services to
Amsterdam until Stapleton's closure. Continental closed its Stapleton pilot and flight attendant bases in October 1994, reducing operations and making United the airport's largest carrier. On the other hand, despite leaving Stapleton in the 1980s due to congestion, the new Denver International Airport would eventually become Southwest's largest base. On February 27, 1995, Delta Flight 569 from
Dallas Fort Worth International Airport was the last revenue flight to land at Stapleton, scheduled for 7:59 pm. Later that evening,
air traffic controller George Hosford cleared the last revenue flight – Continental Flight 34, a
McDonnell Douglas DC-10 bound for London's
Gatwick Airport scheduled to depart at 8:30 pm but delayed– to take off from Stapleton at 9:27 pm. The aircraft was piloted by Captain Gary "Gomo" Greer, First Officer Scott Nutter and Second Officer Bob Horn. After Flight 34 cleared the runway at 9:39 pm, which opened at 12:01 am on February 28.
Post-closure redevelopment When it closed in 1995, Stapleton had six runways (two sets of three parallel runways) and five terminal concourses. The
runways at Stapleton were then marked with large yellow "X"s, which indicated it was no longer legal or safe for aircraft to land there. The
IATA and
ICAO airport codes of DEN and KDEN were transferred to the new DIA, to coincide with the same changes in airline and ATC computers, to ensure that flights to Denver would land at the new DIA. Punch Bowl Social closed in 2020, helped by Covid-19. By 2025 it was reopened as FlyteCo Tower. Most of Stapleton's airport infrastructure has been removed, except for the control tower and some hangars, used by
Denver Police Academy and by Arise Church Denver among others. ==Facilities==