Houston's Hobby Airport first began operating in 1927 as a private field on pasture land south of the city. It was first called W.T. Carter Field. The city bought it in 1937 and renamed it Houston Municipal Airport. It later carried the names Howard Hughes Airport and Houston International, before becoming William P. Hobby Airport in 1967, in honor of a former Texas governor and well known newspaper publisher.
For four decades, Hobby was Houston's main airport and, for a time, the busiest field in Texas. In 1969, Houston Intercontinental, now George Bush Intercontinental, opened, and every scheduled airline moved there. Hobby closed to airlines completely. It reopened to them in 1971, the year Southwest Airlines was founded. Southwest made Hobby its Houston base and rebuilt the airport around low fare flying, meaning cheap tickets with fewer extras.
In 2015, a five gate international concourse opened, funded largely by Southwest after a bitter fight with United. It ended Hobby's status as a domestic only field, letting Southwest fly to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. The original 1940 art deco terminal still stands on the field today. It now houses an aviation museum that tells the story of early flight in Houston.