for the War effort. The additions on the east and west end of the building were added in 1942 and 1943. The upper part of the control tower was added in 1940. It was the first control tower to have slanted windows. After WWII and into the 1950s, the U.S. Air Force decided they needed an air base in centrally located Kansas which would later become McConnell Air Force Base, a Strategic Air Command base until mid-1992 when it became an Air Combat Command base, and December 1993 when it became an Air Mobility Command base. The Air Force didn't want to spend years designing and building a new air base; they wanted one now. The Air Force and the City of Wichita came to an agreement on price and the building was sold to the Federal Government in 1951. The city bought land, designed and began construction of the new Wichita Municipal airport on the west side of Wichita. Both civil and military flights shared the airport until October 1954 when the last commercial flight took off. The Air Force continued to use the building (called Building One) until about 1984 when they shut the doors and abandoned it marking it off as surplus. It sat empty and partially gutted for at least six years until the Kansas Aviation Museum was formed in 1990 and began work. An application for the building to be placed on the Historic Register was filed on March 6, 1990 and was later approved. The outside of the building has been restored but still needs some work. The south part of the building now looks very close to how it looked in 1935. Much remains to be done to the inside and millions more will have to be spent to bring it back to its 1930's heyday look. The building is without a doubt one of the most beautiful buildings in Wichita and possibly in Kansas. As of June 2012, efforts to update the museum have stagnated due to lack of funding. In 2019, improvements were made to the museum, new exterior doors were installed. The control tower glass was replaced. Both projects were done to improve the functionality of the building while maintaining the historical standards required by the National Historical Registry. The architecture of the building is art deco with its strong and obvious geometric shapes and sharp angles. At the front