From 1923, when it was known as the Glendale Airport, to the World War
II era, when the military took it over, Grand Central Air Terminal was
the main commercial airport serving Southern California and the
ancestral home of what became Convair (General Dynamics) and Hughes
Aircraft. The first scheduled transcontinental passenger service was
flown out of Grand Central by Charles Lindbergh, with Amelia Earhart
among the passengers. Grand Central had the first paved runway west of
the Rocky Mountains, and was a terminal for Pickwick, TWA, American, and
Pan Am's Mexican subsidiary. After Pearl Harbor, commercial operations
ceased and the Army Air Corps turned Grand Central into a training
center and a key element in the air defenses for Los Angeles when a
Japanese invasion seemed imminent.