The Forgotten Airport of New Glarus

A private grass runway near Airport and Elmer roads connected New Glarus to aviation’s early years, where local pilot Herman Lufi carried the village’s first airmail, trained as a mechanic and survived a dramatic 1951 crash at night.

Todd Klassy
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6 Min
Edited by Todd Klassy
The Forgotten Airport of New Glarus
Herman Lufi stands beside what is believed to be a World War I-era Standard J-1 training biplane in Kansas City, where he attended Sweeney Air School in 1927 to study aircraft mechanics and learn to fly. The surplus military trainer was the type of aircraft commonly used by flying schools in the years after World War I.

Long before most rural communities had any direct connection to aviation, airplanes were taking off and landing from a privately built grass runway east of New Glarus.

The airfield belonged to Herman Lufi, a township road worker, mechanic and pioneering local pilot who began flying in the 1920s. He built a hangar and graded a landing strip on property he owned near what became Airport Road, creating an unofficial New Glarus airport that remained vivid in the memories of those who grew up nearby.

Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of The Capital Times, grew up on the family farm immediately east of Lufi’s property. He places the airfield south of Airport Road near its intersection with Elmer Road, just east of the buildings now standing there.

“Herman Lufi built the airstrip and the hangar on the property he owned directly west of our farm along what became Airport Road,” Zweifel recalled.

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