Chicago O’Hare International Airport (ORD) is the main international airport serving Chicago, Illinois. It began as an airfield serving a Douglas manufacturing plant for C-54 military transports during World War II. The airport was renamed Orchard Field Airport in the mid-1940s, which is how it got the IATA code ORD. It was renamed once again in 1949, after aviator Edward “Butch” O’Hare.
Edward O’Hare
ORD began offering scheduled passenger service in 1955, and from 1963 to 1998, was the world’s busiest airport (it’s currently the 7th busiest).
ORD has 4 terminals:
- Terminal 1 has 50 gates on two concourses, lettered B–C
- Terminal 2 has 41 gates on two concourses, lettered E–F
- Terminal 3 has 79 gates on four concourses, lettered G, H, K, and L
- Terminal 5 has 40 gates on one concourse, lettered M
Notice anything weird there? Yep, there’s no Terminal 4.
The Short-Lived Terminal 4
There actually once was a Terminal 4, back during the time that ORD was considered the busiest airport in the world.
Until 1985, ORD only had three terminals, appropriately named Terminals 1, 2 and 3. However, the airport was quickly becoming increasingly busy, particularly with international flights. So in 1985, the city decided to build a new terminal, Terminal 4, to help with congestion. To help ease the overcrowding as quickly as possible, they built what they labeled a temporary Terminal 4, which was to be used while they built a larger and better international terminal. Here’s a picture of it (with the caption, “The few seats that were available were occupied at O’Hare’s temporary international terminal on April 1, 1985. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune)”), and another shot (an ORD press photo from 1985), as well as a map of the airport, including “Terminal 4,” at the time.
Terminal 5 Takes Over
However, this temporary Terminal 4 was much too small for what was needed. So airport officials decided to open half of the new terminal (once it was built, of course) to help ease some of the congestion from the temporary one. During the summer of 1993, international flights took off from the temporary international terminal but arrived into the finished half of the new one.
But, of course, the temporary/old and permanent/half/new buildings couldn’t both be Terminal 4. So, the new terminal was named Terminal 5.
When construction on the new building was finally complete and international flights could both take off from and arrive into the same building, the temporary “Terminal 4” shut down and the new one remained “Terminal 5” because everyone figured changing its name by then would be even more confusing.
What’s There Now?
The building, dubbed Terminal 4, is still there — or at least part of it—is, and it’s now home to the airport’s bus depot. You can see it across from the Hilton Hotel, attached to the short-term parking garage.
Oh, and the lack of Terminal D concourse? There used to be one. It was torn down to make way for the Terminal 1 gates. Womp womp. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
H/T: WBEZ/Chicago
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