L.C. Smith Terminal (former location) (Romulus, Michigan)

 airport terminal, historical layer / disappeared object

Formerly home to Air Canada, AirTran Airways, American Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways which moved to the North Terminal on September 18, 2008.

The Smith Terminal, named for Detroit-Wayne Major airport visionary Leroy C. Smith, was built in 1957(also known as the old version of The North Terminal). Though cited as the oldest of Metro Airport's terminals, that designation belongs to the Executive Terminal building located near Middlebelt Road and Lucas Drive, one-quarter-mile east. The Executive Terminal was built in the late 1920s and is still in operation today as home to Signature, a flight support company.

The Smith Terminal's thirty-two gates originally housed Northwest Orient Airlines, Allegheny Airlines (forerunner to US Airways), Eastern Airlines, and Pan-Am, among others. A control tower was included in the construction, and served its purpose until the late 1980s, when a new control tower was built near the site of the new McNamara Terminal.

In later years, Smith Terminal hosted North American airlines other than Northwest, Continental, and later Delta, which was relocated to the McNamara Terminal after its 2002 completion.

State of the art for its time, the Smith Terminal eventually became victim to airline expansion. The design of the building did not allow for physical expansion of the ticketing area. To accommodate additional airlines, ticketing counters were constructed on the sides of the lobby in areas that previously held lounges and retail. In contrast, the North Terminal was constructed with future expansion in mind.

Spirit Airlines, which operated out of many of the gates once used by Northwest, made few upgrades to the gate areas in those parts of the terminal. The Northwest Airlines display boards near check-in counters at each gate remained in place, with the Northwest logos removed, and a Spirit information board simply affixed over the old signage.

On September 10, 2008, the The Detroit News reported that Smith Terminal itself will not be demolished due to the airport authority offices remaining on the upper floors. However, the Detroit Free Press of October 9, 2008 stated that maintaining the terminal in its present condition would cost upwards of $4 million annually in utilities, a sore spot for airlines at DTW who foot the bill, in part, through airport landing fees; the airlines were hoping for a greater cost savings once the Smith and Berry Terminals were decommissioned. On May 20, 2009, the airport authority formally voted to totally vacate the Smith Terminal, while retaining and renovating the Berry Terminal for its offices.

The Smith Terminal was finally demolished in 2012,