In the beginning, the airport consisted of a single concourse and terminal. Through various expansions, there became 5 concourses, and a single very large terminal connecting them. In its heydey, Stapleton was home to 4 airlines hubs. On the A and B Concourses there was United, Continental called C home, Western and the original Frontier flew out of D, and most of the non-hub airlines flew out of concourse E. Post-deregulation, the airline industry went into a consolidation-frenzy with far-reaching effects, and Denver was no stranger to the change. Western merged into Delta and Delta closed down the Denver hub, The original Frontier, strapped for cash, merged into PeoplExpress, and Continental, also cash-strapped, was forced to begin cutting. The earth was beginning to move, literally. During the mid-80's, work began on a new facility, one that would bring Denver into the 21st century with a new level of efficiency and ease that would rival any major airport in existance at the time. Far out on the plains east of the city, a new mega-airport planned to have enough room for 12 runways and 5 concourses, with still enough room to allow for multiple simultaneous ILS approaches. The land mass that this new facility would cover was a staggering 54 square miles, and at the time would be the largest airport in the world. The space is so large, in fact, that at 6 runways and 3 concourses, Denver International Airport still hasn't reached max buildout, and isn't projected to for many, many years. At this point, the city of Denver had alot on its plate. To support the new facility, landing fees at Stapleton were raised to cover the cost to build. Some airlines objected, and Southwest, who'd had limited flights from Denver, pulled out and has never returned. Even with DIA on the horizon, Stapleton was still massively conjested, a stopgap was needed. Construction work began at Stapleton once more, this time for the 5th concourse, concourse E. The building was made with the intent that it could be converted to office space once the airport closed, but this was never to be. by 1992, Continental was being forced out, PeoplExpress was gone, the only hub left was United's, and it was large enough that it needed gates on all 5 concourses. Stapleton was a nightmare for the average traveller. Because of poor runway layout, it was not uncommon to experience 30 to 45 minutes just to get from the gate to the runway, not including the time it took to wait in line for takoff, which during the banks could easily reach upwards of 2 hours sitting on the ground. Add to that the poor runway spacing, during poor weather the airport came to a standstill. If you were a passenger flying United and had to connect from a gate on B to a gate on E, a 30 minute connection was out of the question, because you'd have to go out of security, through the terminal, and back in through security once you reached the E pier. During Stapleton's height, the airport's service included DC-10's from United, American, Continental, Western, and Condor; 747's from United, Continental, and PeoplExpress; L1011 from Delta and TWA; and Delta's Convair 880's. There was also a charter operation that flew from their own terminal on the south side, called Denver Ports of Call, they flew 727's and Convair 990. The airport was a booming facility that aged well beyond her prime, now here's the journey back 10 years later.

It was a typical Colorado summer afternoon, the storms were building up over the city but I had a day off work so I decided I'd go ahead and hit DIA for a little while. While I was there I thought I'd go over to Front Range and snap a few pics of their brand new ATC tower as well. The light was bad, way too stormy, and lightning was in close proximity, so I headed back to the Conoco lot and decided to plan my activities. I had always had a thought in the back of my mind that someday I wanted to go back and visit Stapleton, and I decided that today would be the day. I was just a boy the last time I'd visited Stapleton, I remember going out there many times to pick up family members, but the airport closed when I was 9, so my memory was a bit fuzzy. There were a few things that stuck out, the runway crossing over I-70, watching UA DC-10's roar off into the sky, and as you drove up Quebec past the UA Maintenance facility, there was a scrapped DC-10 parked almost overhanging the road. All that's left of the runway crossing now are bridge abbuttments, and a marketplace now sits where the DC-10 once called home.

The view from Quebec where the DC-10 once sat, driving toward the airport entrance

When I got up to where the old entrance used to be, I turned my car east on Martin Luther King buelevard. This road used to wrap around the back of the parking garage between the terminal and the garage, into the arrivals and departures dropoff and pickup areas, and then coming around and intercepting Quebec it would lead passengers out into the city. That was then. Now, it goes straight, all the way through the site, past the garage and past the tower on the south side, then it heads out east through the Stapleton redevelopment project, a new upscale neighborhood development. MLK runs just north of where the parallel east/west runways would be. I drove down this way for awhile, looking up north to see if the Denver Ports of Call Convair 990 was still sitting as an old rotting hulk, left on a hillside to scrap, but it had been removed. As I turned around and began to head back west, I took some snaps of the tower.

As seen from the East, clearly showing her age

After I came back to the garage, I decided to take a peek inside. The bottom level is still being used as an RTD Park-N-Ride, but the top 2 levels are closed to the public. I drove around inside and found a place to park. Opening the door, I was greeted by the dank smell of a 50 year old parking garage, and the structure clearly showed her age.

The Stairs to the upper levels, blocked off

Looking down the rows, can you imagine how many generations of cars have parked in these spaces?

I walked over to the edge of the garage to snap some pics of the tower. 50 years old and clearly showing it, the tower has been "preserved as a landmark" although It has really been neglected.

Closeup of the tower cab, why is there a direcTV dish attatched to the guardrail up there?


Tower and adjoining building

I was on my way out at this point, but I decided I wanted another angle of the tower and a few more shots of the parking garage from different angles as well. I pulled back into another space, and walked over to the edge of the garage.

Suburbia slowly creeping up on the Tower, you can see freshly finished cookie cutter houses in the background

Looking north along the parking garage wall. In the middle of the photo, there would be a lawn and several lanes of traffic. In the background, you would see the back of the terminal arcing around the parking garage, and above there would be 4 covered walkways leading from the garage to the terminal. Now there are only memories.

The parking garage facade, looking around where the terminal would be

I paused to reflect as a cool breeze blew by. Ten feet away from me was a chain link fence blocking out would-be intruders from getting into the redevelopment project. Above, a FedEx DC-10 flying the approach into DIA. Many of FedEx's DC-10's came from United and American, so it's likely that the airplane I saw once visited Denver in a different colorscheme, in a different era.

On my way out, I was treated to one more find. In Ten years, nobody has bothered to do anything about the exit gate from the old parking garage at Stapleton. Out of the way and not bothering anybody, it has been left there in a surprisingly good condition

The old Art Deco exit gates

I turned out of the parking lot, and just like the last passenger at 4:59 AM on that cold February 29th of 1995, I went home. Ten years later.

All images copyright 2005 Eric Daniel Smith, info provided by Steve Gustafson and his site at http://milehifield/topcities.com/main.html.

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