On Saturday, August 14, 1920, the first aircraft landed at what became the Burlington Municipal Airport. The pilot was Captain Hubert Stanford Broad, who served in the Air Forces of Great Britain during World War I. He circled the city of Burlington, did a few stunts for awaiting spectators and landed his Avro plane in the new field north of Williston Road. This marked Burlington Airport's first fly-in. Not long after the Wright Brothers took to the air in a powered flying machine, WWI pilot and future Mayor of Burlington, Johnny Burns, Aviation Commissioner Mason Beebe and Chamber of Commerce secretary James Taylor raised funds to purchase the land and transformed the field into a landing strip in 1920. The airstrip was leveled using a horse-drawn grader and steamroller owned by the City of Burlington. The airport office was configured in the 1853 Eldridge Schoolhouse, which was relocated to the airfield by Burlington City crews. Technology was nonexistent. In 1921, there were no instruments or beacons to guide pilots to a safe landing. Instead, a circle of crushed limestone showed pilots where to land. After improvements to the landing field, the Burlington Municipal Airport—Vermont's Aerodrome—was formally recognized at a dedication ceremony on September 22, 1921, by Governor Hartness, a pilot himself. Also, in 1921, when J. Holmes Jackson was Mayor, the airport came under the management of the City of Burlington. In 1928, after further improvements, Burlington received recognition from the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of America, and the local Board of Airport Commissioners was formed. Initial steps were taken toward making the airport financially sustainable when the commission established the first set of fees—renting hangar space. By 1930, traveling to Albany or Montreal could be done in record time when Curtiss-Wright Flying introduced service for both passengers and freight. The airport has attracted aviation record setters. Post and Gatty were the stars of an air meet in Burlington in 1931. Grace Hall Pugh was Vermont's "First Lady of Aviation." A teacher from Ferrisburgh, Vermont, and the stepdaughter of Arthur Ashley, BTV's first airport manager, Pugh received a learner's permit to fly in 1932, and became the first licensed female pilot in Vermont in 1938. "When I got my first license, she said, there wasn't an Aeronautics Board. I got my license from the Motor Vehicle Department." During this period, Harold Hugh, a skilled pilot, was managing the airport and became the president of the newly formed Vermont Pilot's Association. On May 22, 1934, Amelia Earhart was presented with the keys to the City of Burlington at the airport. Renowned for her solo flights across the Atlantic and the continental U.S., Amelia Earhart's vision for the future of flying was for flight to become a conventional means of travel for everyone. She used her celebrity status to promote this idea during her visit to Burlington in 1934. Arriving at the airport on a Central Vermont/Boston-Maine Airways Stinson Trimotor, a company she helped found and of which she was vice president, she was greeted by 2,000 people. Also in 1934, hundreds of Civil Works Administration temporary workers helped to prepare the north–south runway and apron for hard surfacing, using equipment from City of Burlington Public Works. In 1935 Earhart returned to Vermont to speak at the Vermont State House in support of increased aviation in the region. In 1941, 75 acres of land adjacent to the airport were purchased through a City of Burlington bond as part of a major upgrade of the airport. With the onset of the World War II, the United States federal government created a Defense Zone extending inland 150 miles (240 km) from the coastline, where private aircraft were restricted from operating.