Indianapolis Municipal Airport opened in 1931 on farmland southwest of the city. In 1944 it was renamed for Colonel Harvey Weir Cook, an Indiana native and a First World War flying ace. Cook died in a crash in the Pacific while training pilots. Through the postwar years the airport grew into a solid, mid sized Midwestern airport, with a terminal built in 1957 that was extended repeatedly as jets arrived.
The airport's biggest moment came in the 1980s, when United Airlines chose Indianapolis for a large national aircraft maintenance center. Then, in 1988, Federal Express opened a hub here, a base where it sorts and connects cargo flights overnight. The United facility closed later, but FedEx stayed and grew steadily into the airport's defining tenant, running its second largest hub after Memphis.
That turned a modest passenger airport into one of the largest cargo airports in the United States. A brand new midfield terminal, named for Weir Cook, opened in November 2008 on the opposite side of the airfield from the old building. Indianapolis has since won many awards for passenger experience. It remains an unusual airport where the nighttime freight side actually carries more weight than the daytime airline schedule.