Beginnings

The airport had its beginnings in 1909, when the Aero Club of St. Louis created a balloon launching base called the "Permanent Aviation Field and Dirigible Harbor" in Kinloch Park, a suburban development of the 1890s. In October 1910, the airfield hosted the first International Air Meet, attracting "many famous persons," including the Wright brothers, who brought six airplanes and their Exhibition Team. President Theodore Roosevelt accepted the club's telegraphed invitation to attend, and after initially ruling out a flight, took off on October 11 with pilot Arch Hoxsey, becoming the first U.S. president to fly. The following year, the airfield—generally called "Kinloch Field"—was the takeoff point for what is generally regarded as the first parachute jump from an airplane. The club's lease on the land expired in 1912, and the field was closed and its grandstand demolished. Efforts to revive the facility were unsuccessful.

In June 1920, a nearby 170-acre field was leased to the Missouri Aeronautical Society, which named its facility the "St. Louis Flying Field." Among the Society's leading members was Albert Bond Lambert, an Olympic silver medalist golfer in the 1904 Summer Games, president of Lambert Pharmaceutical Corporation (which made Listerine), and the first person to receive a pilot's license in St. Louis. So vigorous was Lambert in his efforts to promote St. Louis aviation that in 1923 the field was renamed "Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field." Lambert purchased the field outright in February 1925, and added hangars and a passenger terminal. In the late 1920s, the airport became the first with an air traffic control system–albeit one that communicated with pilots via waving flags. The first controller was Archie League.

Charles Lindbergh's first piloting job was flying airmail for Robertson Aircraft Corporation from the airfield. He stopped at the airport during his cross-country San Diego to New York flight about a week before his record-breaking flight to Paris in 1927. In February 1928, the City of St. Louis leased the airport for $1 million. Later that year, Lambert sold the airport to the city after a $2 million bond issue was passed, making it one of the first municipally owned airports in the United States.

In 1925, the airport became home to Naval Air Station St. Louis, a Naval Air Reserve facility that became an active-duty installation during World War II.

In 1930, the airport was officially christened "Lambert–St. Louis Municipal Airport" by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The first terminal building opened in 1933, and within the decade, the airport was served by Robertson Air Lines, Marquette Airlines, Eastern Air Lines, and Transcontinental & Western Air (later renamed TWA).

In August 1942, voters passed a $4.5 million bond issue to expand the airport by 867 acres (351 ha) and build a new terminal.

During World War II, the airport became a manufacturing base for the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation (later McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing) and Curtiss-Wright.

After World War II: expansion, Ozark Air Lines hub

After the war, NAS St. Louis reverted to a reserve installation, supporting carrier-based fighters and land-based patrol aircraft. When it closed in 1958, most of its facilities were acquired by the Missouri Air National Guard and became "Lambert Field Air National Guard Base." Some other facilities were retained by non-flying activities of the Naval Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve, while the rest was redeveloped to expand airline operations at the airport.

Ozark Air Lines began operations at the airport in 1950.

To handle increasing passenger traffic, Minoru Yamasaki was commissioned to design a new terminal, which began construction in 1953. Completed in 1956 at a total cost of $7.2 million, the three-domed design preceded TWA terminal at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York City. A fourth dome was added in 1965 following the passage of a $200 million airport revenue bond.

The April 1957 Official Airline Guide shows 44 weekday TWA departures; American, 24; Delta, 16; Ozark, 14; Eastern, 13; Braniff, 6 and Central, 2. The first scheduled jet was a TWA 707 to New York on July 21, 1959.

In 1971, the airport became "Lambert–St. Louis International Airport."

In the 1970s, St. Louis city officials proposed to replace Lambert with a new airport in suburban Illinois. After Missouri residents rejected that, Lambert in 1977 received a $290-million expansion that lengthened the runways, increased the number of gates to 81, and boosted its capacity by half. (In 1997, MidAmerica St. Louis Airport would open in Mascoutah, Illinois, far from the site proposed in the 1970s.) Concourse A and Concourse C were rebuilt into bi-level structures with jet bridges as part of a $25 million project in the mid-1970s designed by Sverdrup. The other concourses were demolished. Construction began in the spring of 1976 and was completed in September 1977.