Early history

The first airport to serve Calgary opened in 1914, in the then-town of Bowness. It occupied one-square kilometre (0.39 sq mi) and consisted of a hut and a grass runway. The site is now the location of a community centre (The Landing) as well as Bowness High School and Bowglen Park.

Operations shifted to a new airport southwest of the city in 1928, named Old Banff Coach Road Airport (51°02′55.7″N 114°09′09.8″W). However, issues with turbulence in the area prompted another airfield to be built the following year in the neighbourhood of Renfrew known as the Calgary Municipal Airport or Stanley Jones Airport. The local airline Renfew Air Service constructed the Rutledge Hangar at the Renfrew site (6th Street and Regal Crescent) in 1929, a lamella arch structure composed of Douglas Fir planks on a reinforced concrete base. The Renfew Air Service folded in November 1931 as a result of the Great Depression, and ownership of the Rutledge Hangar was taken over by the Edmonton Credit Corporation who subsequently lease the hangar to the City of Calgary. The RCAF used the airport in the 1940s. The Rutledge Hangar remains standing at the original Renfew site by Boys and Girls Club of Calgary and was designated an Alberta Provincial Historic Resource on 5 May 2003.

Present site and World War II

As the City of Calgary grew to surround the Renfrew airport site the municipal government decided to relocate the airport to a new location. The city purchased an area of land north of Calgary in 1938 for about $31,000; and remains the site of Calgary's current airport. The city came to an agreement with Trans-Canada Air Lines to construct and lease a hangar on the site for $45,000 (equivalent to $959,610 in 2025), and the federal Department of Transportation financed the construction of three runways and other improvements, the first of which opened on 25 September. The new Calgary airfield was named McCall Field after First World War ace and lifelong Calgarian Fred McCall.

As a result of Canada entering the Second World War, the federal government assumed control of McCall Field in 1940, re-purposing it as a fuel and maintenance stop for aircraft involved in the war effort and later stationing the No. 37 Service Flying Training School at the airfield from 22 October 1941 until its closure on 10 March 1944. McCall Field continued to operate regular passenger flights during the Second World War.

Following the end of the Second World War, the airport had been expanded to include additional hangars, four runways and other infrastructure. The City of Calgary resumed management of McCall Field in 1946, repurposed the a hangar as a passenger terminal, and convinced the federal government to extend the airports 4,125 ft (1,257 m) east–west runway to 6,200 feet (1,900 m) in October 1949 at an estimated cost of $750,000 the construction required a 5 foot (1.5 m) excavation below grade to prevent frost heaving. At the time of completion, McCall Field's east–west runway was the third-longest runway in Alberta behind the Calgary Airport's north–south runway and the runway at CFB Namao.

1950s and 1960s: Terminal expansion and jet age

The re-purposed military hangars did not meet the growing transportation needs of the city, and efforts were made by city officials to secure funding for a new passenger terminal. A new passenger terminal was constructed in 1956; its design originated in the 1950s as a thesis project by Provincial Institute of Technology and Art architecture student Ken Bond, who later formed the architectural firm Clayton, Bond and Mogridge, which was awarded the contract for designing the new terminal. The one-million dollar project featured an open public concourse, and ticketing offices for three airlines was dubbed one of the most modern air terminals in Canada when it opened on 2 June 1956. A lavish opening ceremony was attended by federal Transportation Minister George C. Marler, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta John J. Bowlen, and Mayor Donald Hugh Mackay, and a number of other dignitaries. The festivities included an air show featuring an Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck. Following construction of the new passenger terminal, McCall Field would see 110,984 passenger arrivals, 96,287 departures and nearly 1,000,000 pounds (450,000 kg) of cargo through the airport in 1957.

In the 1960s Calgary City Council began lobbying the federal government to designate McCall Field as an "international airport", a status defined by the Department of Transportation. As a compromise on 6 April 1962, the federal government approved naming the airport terminal Calgary International Airport from Calgary Municipal Airport. However, Mayor Harry Hays, local aldermen and residents continued to refer to the airport in general as McCall Field. Calgary International Airport did not receive official "International" status from the federal government until 1969.