For “the Flyer, Flying Executive and the Aero Tourist”

By Ted Grevstad-Nordbrock, Michigan State Historic Preservation Office | October 13, 2009

Sketch of Fraser Airport, Circa 1949

Thomas B. Joy Airport

Fraser, Michigan, sits in south central Macomb County, in Detroit’s northern suburbs. The city is a typically suburban mix of low-density, residential neighborhoods and commercial strips, with pockets of industry. Fraser was also once home to a small airport—the Thomas B. Joy Airport. This is noted in Vacation in Michigan by Plane: A Sketch Book of Michigan’s Airports and Landing Fields, a guide published yearly by the Michigan Department of Aeronautics. This small airfield was one of dozens found across Michigan in the years following World War II. It was a time when individualized air travel was considered within the reach of the average Michigander—of “the Flyer, the Flying Executive, and the Aero Tourist” (as the authors of Vacation in Michigan by Plane so optimistically noted in the dedication of the 1950 edition).

Diagram of Fraser Showing Position of Airport, Circa 1949

“…seemingly vanished completely…”

Joy Airport was located on the square parcel now bounded by Masonic Boulevard, Kelly Road, 13 Mile Road and Eveningside Drive, in the southeast corner of Fraser. A look at contemporary aerial photographs of this area quickly reveals nothing that would suggest the one-time presence of an airport here. Joy Airport’s hangars and administration buildings are gone, as are its three 2,000 foot-long runways—features that are difficult to fully erase from the landscape and can often be discerned at sites of former airports (Paul Freeman’s Web site Abandoned and Little-Known Airfields provides numerous examples of the physical persistence of runways at former airport sites.) Joy Airport has seemingly vanished completely beneath the brick homes and winding streets of the mid-1950s subdivision called “Venetian Village.”

Aerial Photo of the Joy Airport Site, Circa 2009

Or Has It?

But not completely, perhaps. One aspect of the subdivision does suggest its former use. A small residential street, “Airport Road,” runs parallel to Masonic Boulevard near where Joy Airport’s buildings and aircraft apron were once located. And to the southeast of the former airport site are two small roads, “Joy Drive” and “Joy Court.” Presumably these are references to the former airport, or to the man after which the airport was named. Otherwise, nothing else remains to recall Thomas B. Joy Airport and the travelers that began and ended their journeys here or stopped temporarily in Fraser, Michigan on their way to other points and places.

Map Showing the Subdivision's Street Names, Circa 2009

The Library of Michigan holds several editions of Vacation in Michigan by Plane in its Lansing collections.

The street map and aerial photograph were created using the Map Michigan service of the Michigan Center for Shared Solutions.