Bamberger Ranch Airport

While no single official reason has been published, the closure aligns with the evolution of the property's primary mission. The Bamberger Ranch transformed into the 'Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve,' a non-profit organization dedicated to ecological restoration and environmental education. An active private airstrip was likely considered unnecessary, a potential liability, or inconsistent with the preserve's core mission of conservation and maintaining a natural habitat. The closure may also be related to its owner, J. David Bamberger (born 1928), ceasing his personal flying activities.

The site of the former airport is now fully integrated into the Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve. The physical runway is no longer used for aviation but remains visible in satellite imagery as a long, mowed grass clearing within the ranch's landscape. The land is managed in accordance with the preserve's goals of habitat restoration, water conservation, and wildlife management.

Bamberger Ranch Airport (formerly bearing the FAA identifier 1TA1) was a private turf airstrip built to serve the personal and business needs of its owner, J. David Bamberger, the co-founder of Church's Fried Chicken. The 3,300-foot runway provided convenient, direct general aviation access to his remote 5,500-acre ranch. Its operational period coincided with the monumental task of restoring the severely overgrazed land into a thriving ecological model. The airport facilitated Mr. Bamberger's access to the property during its transformation into the renowned conservation preserve it is today. All operations were private and non-commercial.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening the airport. The current and future mission of the Selah, Bamberger Ranch Preserve as a non-profit educational and conservation center is fundamentally incompatible with the operation of an airfield. Therefore, the prospect of it reopening for aviation purposes is virtually non-existent.