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Lawrence County Airpark (KHTW) is a small public-use airfield at South Point, Ohio, sitting on the Ohio side of the Ohio River opposite Huntington, West Virginia. Dating back to 1929 as the Huntington-Ironton-Chesapeake Airport, it once hosted scheduled airline service before settling into its present role as a quiet general-aviation field with a single hard-surfaced runway.
Lawrence County Airpark is a publicly owned general-aviation airfield serving the villages of Chesapeake, Ohio, and the city of Huntington, West Virginia, which lies just across the Ohio River. Owned by the Lawrence County Board of Commissioners, the field has a long aviation pedigree stretching back to the earliest days of scheduled air travel in the tri-state area, making it an interesting stop for pilots with an eye for aviation history as well as those simply looking for a low-key General Aviation destination.
The airfield lies about two nautical miles west of the centre of Chesapeake, Ohio, and directly across the Ohio River from Huntington, West Virginia. There is no air traffic control tower on the field, and traffic is coordinated by pilots themselves over the common frequency.
The airpark has a single hard-surfaced, lit runway aligned 08/26. Runway 08 has a landing length of 2,804 feet and Runway 26 a landing length of 2,980 feet. There is no ILS approach available at the field.
Traffic at Lawrence County Airpark is handled on the CTAF/UNICOM frequency 122.7 MHz, with the callsign UNIC used for advisory calls. There is no published instrument approach or navaid associated with the field, so arrivals should plan for a visual approach.
The Ohio River forms an unmistakable visual reference along the northern edge of the airfield, with the city of Huntington, West Virginia, visible across the water and the village of Chesapeake, Ohio, close to the east. The original north-south sod strip laid out in 1929 survives in part as the airfield's taxiway, running perpendicular to the current 08/26 runway.
The airfield was established in 1929 as the Huntington-Ironton-Chesapeake Airport, the result of negotiations by John Paul Riddle of the Embry-Riddle Company to extend air mail and passenger routes along the Ohio River valley. Funding came from Embry-Riddle itself along with the Huntington Chamber of Commerce, the Huntington Bridge Company and a local aviation booster club, and the land was bought from Joe L. Wilson of the Huntington Bridge Company. The field opened on 31 August 1929 over the Labor Day weekend with a 3,600-foot east-west sod strip, on the site of today's runway 8/26, and a 2,500-foot north-south strip that survives in part as the current taxiway; an estimated 45,000 people attended the opening celebrations, which featured aerial stunts, paid rides and a Ford Tri-Motor on display. Embry-Riddle ran the field and its flight school initially but withdrew the following year after disputes over hangar construction. American Airlines made short-lived attempts to establish service in 1932 and 1936, before beginning permanent scheduled service in 1938 following an agreement to lengthen and pave the main runway. That service ended in April 1945 when American closed its weather office, partly because the runway had become too short for fully loaded DC-3 operations; this eventually led to the creation of the Huntington Airport Authority in 1947 and the development of the present-day Tri-State Airport in Wayne County, West Virginia. The field, by then known as Huntington Airport, was purchased in August 1946. Later decades saw prolonged local disputes over ownership, a closure petition in 1968, a failed runway-extension scheme blocked by a landowner, and a series of lawsuits over leasing and operation that ran into the mid-1970s, after which the county commissioners were confirmed as owners and the field was leased first to Lawrence County Airpark, Inc. and subsequently to Lawrence County Aviation, Inc. More recent history includes two recorded accidents involving light aircraft, in March 2005 and January 2011.
Lawrence County Airpark continues to operate as a general-aviation field with based aircraft and a steady level of light-aircraft movements recorded in recent years. Pilots planning a visit should use the CTAF/UNICOM frequency for self-announced traffic calls, as there is no tower or approach control on site.
