Thornton Airport

Economic and functional redundancy. Thornton Airport was a small, private turf airstrip. Its closure is directly linked to the opening of the larger, publicly-owned, and better-equipped Haywood County Airport (M04) in 1982. The new airport, located just a few miles northwest, provided a superior facility with a paved runway and public services, rendering the private Thornton Airport obsolete for the community's needs.

The site of the former Thornton Airport has been completely reclaimed for agricultural use. Current satellite imagery of the coordinates shows that the land is now a cultivated farm field. While no buildings or airport infrastructure remain, the faint, straight outline of the former north-south runway is still discernible within the crops, a common ghost-like feature of abandoned airfields.

Thornton Airport was a private general aviation airfield that operated from approximately the late 1960s. It first appeared on the 1968 Memphis Sectional Chart. The facility consisted of a single north/south turf runway (18/36) measuring approximately 2,640 feet in length. As a private field, its operations were restricted and likely centered on recreational flying for the owner and authorized users, and potentially some agricultural aviation (crop dusting), which is common in this rural, agricultural region of West Tennessee.

There are zero known plans or prospects for reopening Thornton Airport. The land is privately owned and is now productive farmland. The aviation needs of Brownsville and Haywood County are comprehensively served by the active Haywood County Airport (M04), making the revival of this small, former private strip unnecessary and highly improbable.