to Lunken, leaving Parks in charge of the airport. After a year at Lunken, he returned to Blue Ash and built his own facility on the northern edge of the property, along Glendale Milford Road. By 1928, airlines were making scheduled flights to Cleveland and Louisville, Kentucky, from Watson. Failed expansion plans In 1938, after a major flood submerged Lunken Airport, Cincinnati city leaders began discussing a major expansion of the Blue Ash site in order to replace Lunken as the area's commercial airport. By this time, Watson was used primarily for training student pilots from local universities. The city purchased Parks Watson Airport in 1946 and Hugh Watson Field in 1955. The city headquartered Blue Ash Airport at the former Hugh Watson Field, keeping Parks Watson open for a time, and closed a shooting range that had operated on the property since the 1940s. The city's Blue Ash development plans were hampered by community opposition, three failed Hamilton County bond measures, political infighting, and Cincinnati's decision not to participate in the federal airfield program. While fog and flooding continued to cause frequent problems at Lunken, Northern Kentucky officials secured federal funds to build a competing airport at Hebron, in 1944. The Greater Cincinnati Airport (CVG) began serving commercial flights there two years later. Cincinnati officials maintained expansion plans for the Blue Ash site into the 1960s, hoping to compete with CVG. County officials drew up plans for a connector from the Mill Creek Expressway (Interstate 75) to the airport. However, the Blue Ash Civic League and nearby residents continued to oppose the expansion plans. Blue Ash incorporated, first as a village in 1955, then as a city in 1961, to take control of zoning matters and contain the airfield. By 1959, the county dropped plans for an airport connector and instead focused on building a more ambitious Cross County Highway. In 1960, the Internal Revenue Service selected the Cincinnati area for a new, five-state regional data center, prompting many area cities and townships to vie for the facility and its employees' income tax revenue. The following year, Blue Ash proposed to have Cincinnati donate part of the Blue Ash Airport site to the IRS, calling hopes for a major airport there "obsolete". For its part, Cincinnati had been pushing for a Queensgate location. Instead, Northern Kentucky officials again won out over their Ohio counterparts, securing a new facility in