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���They wanted McCarran to look like other world-class airports,��� says Daniel Bubb, a UNLV-trained historian and author of the book Landing in Las Vegas: Commercial Aviation and the Making of a Tourist City. ���That was the goal from the get-go, that we compete with Paris, Los Angeles���s LAX, Chicago���s O���Hare, and other major airports in terms of quality, size, convenience.��� The result: the March 15, 1963, opening of McCarran���s new terminal. The new McCarran included a 262,000-square-foot clamshell-shaped three-level terminal, with airline ticket counters, baggage carousels, the Flight Deck Restaurant, the Omni Bar, shops, terminal gates, two runways (one 10,200 feet long and the other 8,900), taxiways, automobile parking, and a 239,610-square-yard apron for commercial airline use. In an earlier era, the grand railroad terminals of New York City, Peg Crockett Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, stood as icons of business and power. Now the nation���s new airports, including McCarran, would similarly demonstrate that their cities were serious about investing in their own futures. ���This was all a part of Las Vegas and Nevada growing up,��� says Michael Green, a history professor at the College of Southern Nevada. The new 1963 terminal looked nothing like today���s terminals at McCarran and other major airports. Back then the designs were purely functional, a way to comfortably get people in and out with as few snags as possible. By today���s standards, there was virtually no security. Travelers pulled up to the curb or parked in an adjacent lot, ran to a ticket counter, checked their bags, and were off to their destinations in less than an hour���but even that was a dramatic transformation from 15 years earlier. THE PIONEERS HE WAS A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR from Unionsville, Missouri, who became a sales representative for Stinson Aircraft Co. His wife? A savvy business operator. George and Peg Crockett arrived in Las Vegas in 1942 seeking land for an airstrip. In the same year, after clearing a dirt strip and building a ���gas shack,��� they opened Alamo Field at the site of today���s McCarran International Airport and 106 Mandalay Bay. They owned two small planes, leased eight, and built a terminal, a hangar, and an airport with three dirt runways, dragging the growing Las Vegas into the flight age. Clark County purchased Alamo Field from the Crocketts in 1948 and renamed it McCarran Airport, for the state���s US Sen. Pat McCarran, an early aviation advocate for Southern Nevada. PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF LAS VEGAS NEWS BUREAU (MCCARRAN FIELD), LAS VEGAS SUN ARCHIVES (CROCKETT) The dedication of McCarran Field circa 1948. VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 104-109_V_Feat_FiftyandFab_Spring13.indd 106 2/11/13 1:01 PM