10/02/2026
Before Roosevelt Field and Mitchel Field became familiar names, Hazelhurst Field was one of the major aviation sites on the Hempstead Plains.
The U.S. Army established Hazelhurst Field near Mineola in 1916 on land that had already been used for aviation by the New York National Guard. It was named for 2nd Lt. Leighton W. Hazelhurst Jr., an Army officer who had been killed in an aviation accident in 1912.
Hazelhurst expanded rapidly after the United States entered World War I. It served as a flying school, supply depot and reception center for Army Air Service personnel, and became part of a much larger network of military aviation facilities across central Nassau County.
As that operation grew, the Army created a second flying area immediately to the south known as Field No. 2. In July 1918, it was renamed Mitchel Field for John Purroy Mitchel, the former mayor of New York City, who had been killed in an aviation accident while training with the Air Service in Louisiana.
After World War I, Hazelhurst and other nearby Army aviation facilities were consolidated with Mitchel Field. Mitchel went on to become one of Long Island's most important military air bases. It hosted major aviation events, including the National Air Races, and in 1929 Jimmy Doolittle carried out his famous instrument-only takeoff, flight and landing there, an important milestone in the development of all-weather flying.
Mitchel Field remained an active military installation through World War II and into the postwar period before closing in 1961. Much of the former airfield is now occupied by Nassau Community College, the Nassau Coliseum area, the Cradle of Aviation Museum and other parts of the present-day Mitchel Field complex.
Hazelhurst also played a role in the early history of U.S. airmail. On September 8, 1920, mail left Hazelhurst on the first transcontinental airmail route to San Francisco, moving west by a relay of aircraft and pilots. In February 1921, another transcontinental test helped demonstrate that mail could be flown across the country continuously through both day and night.
The New York Public Library photograph shown here has a direct postal connection in its catalog record. NYPL lists "Postal service" among its subjects and includes the note "P.O. Dept Wash DC," indicating that the image was associated with the U.S. Post Office Department.
The naming and boundaries of Hazelhurst, Roosevelt and Mitchel changed over time, which can make the history confusing. The safest way to view the area is as a cluster of closely related aviation fields that developed across the Hempstead Plains during the years when Long Island was becoming one of the most important centers of early American aviation.
Photo caption/credit: Hazelhurst Field, New York, circa 1860-1920; The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library Digital Collections.
Sources:
• https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/97acf6e0-c612-012f-3b87-58d385a7bc34
•https://history.army.mil/portals/143/Images/Publications/catalog/23-4.pdf
• https://postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/fad-to-fundamental-airmail-in-america-airmail-creates-an-industry-coast-to-coast/spanning
• https://postalmuseum.si.edu/page-randolph-gilham-dizzy
• https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/history/
• https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/history/air_fields/mitchel_field.html
• https://sova.si.edu/record/nasm.2013.0034
