Chanute Field listed in National Register of Historic Places

RANTOUL - The Chanute Field Historic District in Rantoul has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the National Park Service, a designation that includes the district on the nation's most prestigious list of places with historical significance.

 

            "Chanute Field has important ties to every major conflict fought by the United States during the Twentieth Century," said Robert Coomer, director of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA), which administers the National Register program in Illinois.  "Its remarkably intact buildings provide a glimpse of life on a home front Air Force base."

 

The Chanute Field Historic District was listed in the National Register on July 14, 2006.  The military base, which was founded in 1917, is nationally significant for serving as a vital center of military aviation training for the U.S. Army Air Corps, Army Air Forces, and the United States Air Force.  During World War II Chanute Field was the Army's largest facility for training in advanced aircraft maintenance and repair.  The district is also important as a remarkably well-preserved example of U.S. Army airfield and air training base planning and design of the late 1930s.  Chanute Field was closed in 1993 as part of the Department of Defense's Base Relocation and Closure (BRAC) process.  Since 1993, the facility has undergone redevelopment for private sector aviation, residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional uses. 

 

For more information on the National Register of Historic Places program in Illinois, visit www.Illinois-History.gov/PS/historicplaces.htm.