A Promise Broken: Glenview Air Museum Closes After 20-Year Fight for Survival

GLENVIEW, Ill. –The Glenview Hangar One Museum, a testament to community perseverance and a bitter, decades-long dispute with local government, has closed its doors for good. The shuttering last month marks the final chapter in a saga that began with a battle to save a piece of history and ended with its advocates financially and emotionally drained, having never received the public support they were repeatedly led to believe was coming.

The story starts in 1998, when the U.S. Navy sold the former Naval Air Station Glenview property to the village for $1. Plans soon surfaced to demolish the air traffic control tower and the last remaining structure, Hangar One. In response, a group of citizens formed the nonprofit Glenview Hangar One Foundation and successfully went to court, obtaining a freeze on the demolition.

A temporary peace was brokered when both structures were added to a list of registered landmarks—a status that implies an agreement for preservation but lacks the full force of legal protection. For a moment, it seemed the historic buildings were safe.

That hope was shattered one weekend when the courts were closed. Hangar One was abruptly torn down. While historical documents remain unclear on whether the village or a private developer carried out the demolition, it was confirmed to have been approved by the village.

“That was the first major betrayal,” said a foundation member who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the long-running dispute. “We had an agreement, and they waited for a quiet weekend to knock it down. It told us everything we needed to know about how they viewed their promises.”

Undeterred, the foundation established a museum just outside the Glen to honor the site's naval aviation history. What followed was twenty years of what members describe as “bureaucratic purgatory.”

“The village met with us almost every single month for two decades,” the foundation member said. “They’d string us along, indicating they were on the verge of helping us, of providing funding or a permanent home. Then, after every election, the answer was always the same: ‘No.’”

Eventually, the village shifted responsibility to the Glenview Park District. For five years, the foundation worked with the park district, which then asked the museum to commission a feasibility study. The foundation understood that if the study showed a viable path forward—if "one plus one added up to at least two"—the park district would take over and support the museum.

The foundation paid $120,000 for the study. The results, they say, were overwhelmingly positive, “adding up to four.” But by the time the report was complete, a new park district board had been elected. The answer, once again, was a firm “no.” The park district has not reimbursed the foundation for the cost of the study.

With its resources exhausted and after never receiving a single penny of funding from either the Village of Glenview or the Glenview Park District, the museum could no longer afford its rent. It closed completely last month.

The Glenview Park District and the Village of Glenview did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the foundation's claims.

For the volunteers who dedicated decades to preserving Glenview’s history, the closure is a heartbreaking defeat. They saved the control tower, but lost everything else—the hangar, their museum, and over $120,000—in a battle against a system they say was designed to wear them down.

“They never had any intention of helping us,” the foundation member said. “They just waited us out. And in the end, they won.”

If you Google “George LeClaire Glenview Navy Museum YouTube “ you can watch a full one hour video interview from about six months ago of board members from the foundation. There are two versions one that is completely unedited at one hour which includes the questions that were asked and then the second one is edited down and the questions removed and all you hear is the answers and that is 32 minutes.