Minneapolis-Saint Paul International began in 1920 as Speedway Field, laid out inside the abandoned concrete oval of the failed Twin City Motor Speedway. It was renamed Wold-Chamberlain Field in 1923 to honor two local pilots killed in the First World War.
In 1926 Northwest Airways began flying airmail from the site, starting a relationship that would define the airport for eight decades. Through the 1930s and 1940s the field gained paved runways and steadily replaced its racetrack origins with hangars and terminals as the Twin Cities grew into a regional aviation center.
The grand Lindbergh Terminal, today's Terminal 1, opened in 1962 and was expanded almost continuously as Northwest Airlines built Minneapolis into one of its three great hubs. A separate charter terminal, later named for Hubert Humphrey and now called Terminal 2, was rebuilt in 2001 to host leisure and low-cost carriers.
A new north-south runway, 17/35, opened in 2005 to relieve the two crossing parallels. When Delta absorbed Northwest in 2008, MSP became a cornerstone Delta hub, retaining transatlantic and Asian links. The airport has since poured investment into concourse renovations, dining, and its much-praised passenger experience.