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The region's first licensed airfield owned and operated by an African-American has been dedicated as an outdoor exhibit by Prince George's County and state politicians and former pilots at the Patuxent River Park in Upper Marlboro.

A ceremony, sponsored by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, was held Oct. 30 to celebrate the park's Columbia Air Center, an airfield that opened in 1941 to black airmen during a time when they were discriminated against by many airfields.

The exhibit features an iron archway with the original logo of the Columbia Air Center along with a brick pathway and interpretive panels that show a historic timeline of the airfield.

"This is the first time we've created an outdoor exhibit so that people can learn about the airfield," said Cathy Allen, assistant parts division chief for the Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation. "It was considered one of the busiest airports in Prince George's County in the 1940s."

Airmen who once flew at the field said it was once a popular destination for the African-American community when there were few options for blacks who wanted to fly.

"The Columbia Air Center was the Mecca of black aviation in the 1940s," said Herbert Jones, who was a flight instructor at the center in the 1950s. "For blacks in aviation, it's been a hard road. We've come a long way."

The exhibit overlooks the center's old runway field, but the land that once held six runways is now covered by vegetation and a cornfield.

Prince George's County politicians said the site displays the area's diversity.

"I very much appreciate this [exhibit] more than you know," said Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach. "People don't even know this exists in Prince George's County — they think of it as an urban county."

The airfield was originally called Riverside Field and was occupied by the Navy during World War II. In the 1940s, it was opened as the Columbia Air Center by John W. Greene, the first African-American to receive an aircraft engine mechanic's license.

Greene turned the center into a flying school, charter service and maintenance shop for blacks who were barred from using other centers. The field soon became the center of choice for African-American pilots in the region.

But by the early 1950s, the center's popularity began to wane, and the family who owned the land no longer wanted it to be an airfield and closed it in 1956. The land was purchased in 1959 by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission as land for the Patuxent River Park.

Former pilots like Melvin Cooper of Fort Washington said the field was a major accomplishment that deserves to be remembered and celebrated.

"In the 1940s, blacks were not thought of as having the mental capacity to operate a [plane engine]," Cooper said, adding the exhibit is "amazing."