Central Illinois Regional Airport at Bloomington-Normal is a public airport in McLean County, Illinois, three miles east of Bloomington and southeast of Normal. Owned by the Bloomington-Normal Airport Authority, it is also known as Central Illinois Regional Airport (CIRA). The National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems for 2011–2015 categorized it as a primary commercial service airport. Federal Aviation Administration records say the airport had 262,846 passenger boardings (enplanements) in calendar year 2008, 243,448 in 2009 and 274,677 in 2010. The 2013 Federal sequester would have resulted in the closure of the airport's control tower, but the Federal Aviation Administration ultimately reversed its decision. History The airport dates to the spring of 1927, when farmer Herman Will opened a 70-plus-acre tract in rural Normal Township. Bordering the field to the west was the recently-paved Illinois 2 (today U.S. 51/Main Street), and to the east was the Illinois Central Railroad (today Constitution Trail). Along the IC, at the northeast corner of the airport grounds, was Kerrick, a busy grain elevator station that remains a local landmark. The Bloomington Flying Club helped rally the general public and local leaders behind the economic promise of "heavier-than-air" flight. The club owned a "Jenny"-type open-cockpit biplane, and the non-profit organization evidently helped pay for both the construction of a hangar and day-to-day operations of the field. Will offered to rent the field to the city of Bloomington for $1,000 a year, but there was little enthusiasm for a municipally owned or operated airport. In 1928, the Normal field featured a six-plane hangar, fueling pump, wind cone, a circle of crushed stone 100-feet in diameter (the purpose of which was to identify the field from the air), and 75 acres of "comparatively level ground." The airport dedication was held on May 30, 1928 and witnessed by some 10,000 area residents. Local and visiting pilots staged an air show of "stunts and jumps and aerial tricks," according to The Pantagraph. There was "premier" stunt pilot Steve Lacey, representing the Air King factory in Lomax, Illinois, and Bloomington-raised escape artist Nathan B. Winslow, who thrilled spectators by freeing himself from a straight jacket during flight. A few weeks after the dedication, the U.S. Department of Commerce placed the Normal field on its list of officially recognized airports. The following summer, on July 11, 1929, a larger crowd, estimated at 15,000, gathered at the airfield for the Central Illinois Air