Chanute Air Force Base (1917-1993) is a former U.S. Air Force base located south of and adjacent to Rantoul. Its primary mission throughout its existence was Air Force technical training. The base was closed as a result of BRAC in 1993.
Chanute AFB was named in honor of Octave Chanute (1832-1910), a pioneer aeronautical engineer and experimenter, and friend and adviser to the Wright Brothers. Chanute’s biplane glider (1896) with “two arched wings held rigidly together by vertical struts and diagonal wire bracing” (the principle of the Pratt truss used in the railroad bridges which Chanute constructed) served as a prototype design for airplanes. In May 1917, Rantoul was chosen to be the site of Rantoul Aviation Field, however on 6 June 1917 the name was changed to Chanute Field. Rantoul was selected due to its proximity to the Illinois Central Railroad and the War Department’s ground school housed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. During World War I, Chanute was a pilot training school for the Army Air Service. With the end of the war, the facility was closed in January 1919 and used as a storage depot for surplus war material.
In February 1921 Chanute Field was reopened as a technical training center for the Air Service with various types of training being transferred from Kelly Field, Texas, to Chanute. Nine steel hangars were constructed to serve as classrooms by 1924. However, diminishing funds to the Air Service resulted in a sharp decline in the number of students and the use of the airfield during the Great Depression of the early 1930s.
United States Army Air Service Technical Training Command was established at Chanute in 1941, and during World War II, thousands of airmen were stationed there to train new recruits who cycled in and out.
On March 19, 1941, the 99th Pursuit Squadron (“Pursuit” being an early World War II synonym for “Fighter”) was activated at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois. Over 250 enlisted men were trained at Chanute in aircraft ground support trades. This small number of enlisted men was to become the core of other black squadrons forming at Tuskegee and Maxwell Fields in Alabama — the famed Tuskegee Airmen.
After World War II, with the formation of the Air Force, Chanute Field was renamed Chanute Air Force Base. It served as a major training facility for Air Force aircraft maintenance officers; Air Force and Navy meteorology; and enlisted technical training for Air Force aircraft maintenance, flight simulator maintenance, fuel system maintenance and missile system maintenance. Additionally, Chanute AFB was the site for training firefighters, life support specialists (ejection seat, aircrew survival equipment, parachute riggers, etc.), welders, non-destructive inspection (of materials) and airframe repair.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 14, 2006 for significance in Architecture, Community Planning & Development, and Military (#06000594).
