Shields Airport

While no single official reason is documented, the closure is consistent with patterns for small, private airfields. The most likely reasons include economic factors, the owner's retirement or death, or the sale of the property for other uses. The land has been fully reverted to agricultural use, suggesting its value as farmland became greater than its value as a private airport. Furthermore, the presence of the larger, publicly-owned and maintained Red Oak Municipal Airport (KRDK) just 3.5 miles southwest made this private strip largely redundant for local aviation needs.

The airport is permanently closed and the site is now used for agriculture. High-resolution satellite imagery of the coordinates shows that the former runway area has been plowed and integrated into a larger cultivated farm field. The faint outline of the runway is still slightly visible due to differences in soil and vegetation. The associated buildings to the northeast, which likely included a hangar and a residence, appear to be maintained as a private farmstead. There is no remaining aviation infrastructure on the site.

Shields Airport (formerly assigned FAA identifier 2IA8) was a small, privately owned airfield that served the general aviation community. It was operational from at least the 1960s. The airport featured a single unpaved turf runway, approximately 2,600 feet long, oriented northwest/southeast. Its operations were limited to private and recreational flying, serving the owner and possibly other local pilots with small, single-engine aircraft. It did not handle commercial, cargo, or military operations. Its historical significance is purely local, representing a common type of private airstrip that supported grassroots aviation in rural America during the mid-to-late 20th century.

There are no known plans or prospects for reopening Shields Airport. The land is privately owned and actively farmed. Given the conversion of the land and the proximity of the fully-equipped Red Oak Municipal Airport, it is virtually certain that this airfield will not be reactivated.