🛫 The story behind Cornelia Fort Airpark

🚌 Your Questions Answered

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In an effort to reverse course on its history of losses, the Tennessee Titans have implemented lots of big changes this season, including a new coach, wide receiver, and cornerback. [Nashville Scene]

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👮 More SROs in Metro Schools

All of Metro’s high schools and middle schools have school resource officers (SROs) this school year, provided by the MNPD. However, some worry this could lead to a criminalization of normal childhood behavior that would especially affect minority students. SROs have arrested four students since school started. [Nashville Banner]

🚨 CRB Asks for Zero-Tolerance Policy

The Nashville Community Review Board (CRB) is asking MNPD to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on sexual misconduct, and has released a 38-page policy detailing prohibited behaviors, investigation requirements, and disciplinary actions. [NewsChannel 5]

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Every year, thousands of Nashvillians take advantage of Cornelia Fort Airpark — a decommissioned airport in East Nashville on the edge of Shelby Park and Bottoms — to run, bike, skate, and teach their kiddos to go wild on all sorts of wheels. But how many of you know the story of the trailblazing woman the park was named for?

🌹 A Southern Belle With Other Intentions

Dr. Rufus Fort was a prominent member of the community. A surgeon at Nashville General and a breeder of Jersey cattle, he was the owner of Fortland, a massive property in East Nashville at what is now the intersection of Eastland and Riverside Drives. His two daughters — Cornelia, born in 1919, and her sister Louise — were brought up to be proper Southern debutantes, whose comings and goings were tracked in society pages. Cornelia bristled against the future her family set out for her, falling in love with aviation, attending Sarah Lawrence College, and taking up flying lessons. She did not tell her family about her secret passion until after her father’s death in 1940.

🛩️ A Trailblazing Pilot

Within a year, Cornelia became the first female flight instructor in Nashville. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Civilian Pilots Training Program, she moved to Ft. Collins, CO, and was hired in 1941 to teach flying in Hawaii to the military men stationed there. On December 7th, 1941, she and a student were in the air off John Rodgers airfield when they barely dodged a collision with a hostile aircraft; looking out over the horizon, she realized Pearl Harbor was under attack from the Japanese Navy Air Service.

🇺🇸 An American Hero

Thanks to the United States’ entry into World War II, Cornelia was soon invited to join a brand new squadron: The Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS). Based in Delaware, the WAFS tested and delivered aircraft throughout the country, as well as training male cadets. It took until 1977 for the WAFS women to be designated as military personnel and entitled to full military benefits. Sadly, Cornelia did not live to see the day: She was killed in a routine ferrying mission over Dallas Love Field in 1943.