The first aircraft to land on Aruban soil was the KLM Fokker ‘SNIP’ (PJ-AIS), which brought mail from Holland after a first, historic transatlantic flight, on December 23, 1934. It landed on a field on the seashore of Savaneta.

In 1935, Lieutenant Governor Wagemaker selected a terrain located south-east of Oranjestad, on a Government aloe vera field called Dakota; the location was called ‘Baca Morto’ meaning ‘dead cow’ (!) in Papiamento. Decades later, the Dakota Field was to become the Aruba International Airport.

KLM started making regular flights to Curaçao with the SNIP and built a first office and passenger building at the site.

In 1937 an Air-traffic Radio Station was established and this became the first passenger handling building on the island. From 1935 up to 1940 Aruba was connected internationally by air travel with Curaçao, Barbados, Trinidad, Paramaribo, Maracaibo, La Guaira (Maiquetia) and Miami.

Because of World War II, the US Air force established a base in Aruba in 1942, for which the air field was expanded. In that same year construction started on the south side of the runway for a new terminal building of the Dakota Airport. A building which – strange enough – lacked an air traffic control tower . . .

After the war, the increase of visitors and the growing commercial traffic caused the existing terminal to be too small. The third terminal of the Dakota Airport was inaugurated in 1950. The 1942 airport terminal was turned into a fire station.

Till this very day the Dakota Airport terminal building is still there, behind the fence of the airport, opposite Varadero Marina and Boat Yard on Bucutiweg.

A few years ago, Aruba Airport Authority was looking for a tenant for the building – after restoration – to be turned into a restaurant or coffee shop.