Shirley township

Huntingdon County Airport

In August 2000 the federal airport listing showed Huntingdon County Airport, code MUU, four miles south of Mount Union and open to the public. Its runway was gravel and rolled shale, 3,120 feet long and 80 feet wide. The listing counted 10 aircraft based on the field, offered flight instruction, charter flights and aircraft rental, and listed weekday attendance from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The listing effective October 3, 2002 counted 6 aircraft and marked the field unattended. The listing effective October 30, 2003 counted 2 and still showed the airport open to the public.

The county's property record shows a sale in between. On May 31, 2002, two parcels in Shirley Township were sold to Mt. Union Fire Co. No. 1: 98.72 acres at 16188 Croghan Pike and a second parcel of 8.67 acres. Both entries cite the same deed, book 616, page 162, and both give a sale price of $300,000, which we read as one sale of the two together. The record does not call the land an airport.

The federal location, which the listing marks as estimated, falls inside the larger parcel. Government aerial imagery shows a straight strip running northeast to southwest through that parcel and into the smaller one. We read that strip as the airfield, but we have not confirmed that it is a runway and not a road.

A state capital budget act approved on October 30, 2002, five months after that recorded sale, itemizes $1,200,000 for Huntingdon County Airport, for “Acquisition and improvements to airport.” The act sets that amount. It does not show a payment, and we have not found whether any of it was spent.

A federal accident report describes a crash at a field it calls Huntington County, code MUV. On May 13, 1990, a Cessna 150H on short final to runway 22 was seen diving into the ground, and one person was killed. The report describes a gravel runway, 3,100 feet by 80 feet, close to the listing's figures.

The FAA's current airport database has no airport under the code MUU.

Checked against the record. We read the county's parcel record for the two Shirley Township parcels, archived federal airport listings from 2000, 2002 and 2003, the FAA's current lookup, the National Transportation Safety Board's final report on the 1990 crash, and the 2002 capital budget act, including the page with the airport line. The act's list of projects that will not be undertaken does not name the county airport. We placed the federal location and the aerial imagery over the county's parcel lines, and the strip sits where the listing places the field. The imagery has no text and no capture date. What stays open: calling the two parcels the airfield is our reading. The strip could be a road, and we have not confirmed it is a runway. We have not read the deed, so the seller is unknown, and the $300,000 is the sale price in the county's parcel record. We could not read the Daily News for the 1980s and 1990, or deeds earlier than 2002, so we do not say who owned the field before the fire company, when it took the Huntingdon County name, or when it stopped operating as an airport. We have not shown that the field in the 1990 report is this one. The pilot is not named here.

Sources

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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