The original Ithaca Municipal Airport was west of downtown Ithaca, near the inlet of Cayuga Lake. The site was identified as a likely flying field in 1914 by pilot Charles Niles, who considered relocating to Ithaca to establish a practice field. In December 1914, the Thomas Brothers Aeroplane Co. relocated to Ithaca and in 1915 established a flying school using the lake and a field near the inlet. Established prior to 1916, Ithaca Municipal Airport is believed to be the second airport to be established in New York state. The airport initially had two sod runways, but by 1937 it had a 2,700-foot (820 m) north/south asphalt runway and a 2,250-foot (690 m) turf landing strip. The turf runway was no longer in official guidebooks by 1940. Due to its lakeshore location, the airport also provided a dock and anchorage for seaplanes. Bound by the Lehigh Valley Railroad freight yards on the south side, the Cayuga Lake marshes on the north side and fog in the lake valley, the growth potential for the airport was limited. The former airport site is now Cass Park, including a hangar which was renovated in 1975 to house the Hangar Theatre. In 1946, Cornell University and the city of Ithaca began planning for a new airport on East Hill on the university-owned land in Lansing, New York. East Hill Airport opened in 1948 with Robinson Airlines as its primary tenant. On July 1, 1956, the 23 parcels of land that made up the airport were conveyed by Cornell University to Tompkins County for the sum of $324,500 (equivalent to $3,842,763 in 2025). At that point, East Hill Airport was renamed Tompkins County Airport; it later was renamed Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. The original municipal airport was the base for Aviation pioneer Cecil Robinson's aerial photography missions. In 1945, shortly after the end of World War II, he created Robinson Airlines at the municipal airport before transferring operations to the new East Hill Airport in 1948. Scheduled DC-3 flights to East Hill began in 1948; the airline changed its name to Mohawk Airlines in 1952 and merged with Allegheny Airlines in 1972. Later, the airport was served by Empire Airlines and Air North; the latter became Brockway Air, which merged into Piedmont Airlines. Allegheny, Piedmont and Empire all eventually merged into US Airways, which later merged into American Airlines. Other carriers included Commuter Airlines, Mall Airways, Command Airways (later operating under the name American Eagle), Ransome Airlines (also operating under the name TW Express, United Express) and Continental Express. Another aviation pioneer, Ruth Carol Taylor, was the first African-American flight attendant in American commercial aviation history. Her first flight was a Mohawk Airlines flight departing Ithaca on February 11, 1958. In 1994, a new, 33,000 sq ft (3,100 m2), $11-million terminal opened, replacing the cramped original building. Simultaneously, the runway was extended from 5,801 feet (1,768 m) to 6,602 feet (2,012 m); the runway was subsequently extended in 2009 to its present 6,977 feet (2,127 m) as part of a runway-safety extension project that added 375 feet (114 m) of additional takeoff pavement to Runway 14. Runway 32 has an instrument landing system and a medium-intensity approach light system with runway alignment lights. Runway 14 has an instrument approach based on the VOR/DME at the airport. A short turf runway was commissioned parallel to the paved runway, but during the 1980s a north–south turf runway was west of the terminal building, about 1,802 feet (549 m) long and 100 feet (30 m) wide. Airline traffic peaked in 1990 at 226,813 passengers, but by the end of the decade the small size of the market and proximity to Syracuse Hancock International Airport and other regional airports led Trans World Airlines, United Airlines and finally Continental Airlines to leave.