Greenville-Spartanburg Airport Field Named for Rog
Greenville, SC, June. 17--In an honor nearly 50 years in the making, the airfield at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport was named Roger Milliken Field on Tuesday morning.
According to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, the honor was suggested by the legislative delegations of Greenville and Spartanburg counties in a concurrent resolution delivered to the airport commission by approximately a dozen members of the Statehouse. The commission, led by chairman
Roger Milliken since it was organized 46 years ago, accepted the recommendation.
Rep. Ralph Davenport, R-Boiling Springs, has been working on the honor for several years.
"Mr. Milliken does not take enough credit for (the airport)," said Davenport, who said he was undeterred when Milliken turned down the honor two years ago.
On Tuesday morning, Davenport was there when House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, presented the honor to Milliken and the commission.
"Sometimes he can be hard to read," Davenport said. "(But) you could see it in his face. He was in awe of it."
The resolution was introduced in the S.C. House by Speaker Pro Tem Doug Smith, R-Spartanburg, whose father handled much of the airport's original title work.
"It was long overdue," said Smith, who said the delegations briefly considered whether to attempt to rename the airport itself after the Spartanburg textile magnate.
However, Smith said there would be many federal hoops through which to jump and Smith doubts Milliken would have allowed the airport to take on his name.
"He's extremely humble," he said. "We wanted to do this first." Businessmen from Greenville and Spartanburg approached Milliken and the late Charles Daniel, then head of Daniel Construction in Greenville, about the idea of a regional airport in late 1950s.
Milliken, who generally avoids publicity about his own philanthropy, refuses to take credit for the airport's founding. "It's been an enormous advantage to the community and attracted a lot of business," Milliken said in an interview last week in his Spartanburg office.
"I can't take the credit for that."
He said Alester Furman of Greenville and Walter Brown of Spartanburg are the ones who saw the need.
"We went ahead and quietly sought out the space and made a model of what we might do and showed it to the delegation," Milliken said. It was at a meeting of the two counties' legislative delegations in 1958 that lawmakers first saw that model.
The very same night, three commissioners were elected from each county.
Milliken was named the first chairman.
There have been no others.
Milliken helped scoop the first few yards of dirt with a bulldozer on July 7, 1961, to officially break ground on the facility. The October 1962 opening was not without its tense moments, Milliken said.
Milliken said Eastern Airlines, the primary carrier for the Upstate in the early 1960s, did not agree to stop at GSP until the night before its opening. Eastern was making stops in Anderson, Greenville, Asheville and Spartanburg at the time.
"It was an act of faith that we went ahead," he said. Milliken does allow himself to be proud of one fact: Since the original $10 million bond was backed by both counties at the outset, the airport commission has never had to ask for more money. "I've always been very proud of the fact that commission that runs the airport has looked ahead and worked it out," he said. Today, more than 1.3 million passengers each year either board or exit planes at GSP.
