Friendship International Airport opened in June 1950, dedicated by President Harry Truman. It was named for a small church and community whose land it replaced. The City of Baltimore built it about ten miles south of downtown, with room to grow from the very start. The ceremony drew national attention as a sign of the region's growing air travel ambitions. Few predicted how much bigger it would eventually become.
It was one of the first American airports designed from the start for jet planes, with a long runway and wide ramp space. For its first two decades, it competed poorly with Washington National, which sat much closer to the capital and the government market. Many travelers in the region still preferred the shorter drive into Washington itself. That gap in convenience took decades to close.
In 1972 the State of Maryland bought the airport and renamed it Baltimore Washington International, claiming the Washington market too. Southwest Airlines later built a huge operation here. In 2005 the airport added the name of Thurgood Marshall, the Baltimore born lawyer who became the first Black justice of the Supreme Court. It is now often the busiest of the three Baltimore and Washington airports.