Kelly Field

 airport, historic ruins

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Named Kelly Field in honor of early Western Air Express pilot Fred Kelly, this strip was opened by the Department of Commerce in 1930 and was located on Contract Air Mail Route #4, which ran between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. It was state-of-the-art for 1930, and included a lighted dirt landing strip, a 50-60 foot rotating beacon, and a house for the caretaker. The first caretakers were Mabel and Ken Wilhelm. The Wilhelms originally ran a small service station and restaurant in Mannix, which suffered from slow business due to the Depression. When the Department of Commerce closed the field in 1935, they returned to Mannix to run their business. The cabin the Wilhelms stayed in was moved to Baker, CA along with the one from the Silver Lake airfield. Both were demolished and the site is now a parking lot.

Kelly Field had a directional arrow mark "18 LA-SL." The beacon tower was located to the SE. corner and had a 24-inch rotating green coarse light flashing a characteristic "8" (—. . .).

Some ruins of the former field remain.

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