ORD
Why is this is the airport code for Chicago O’Hare?
O’Hare is built on what used to be an airfield complex called “Orchard Field.” It served a Douglas manufacturing plant and an Air Force service depot.
That’s where the “ORD” comes from: “Orchard.”
When the city of Chicago needed more capacity than the original airport (now Midway), they purchased this complex and built what would become O’Hare.
It was renamed O’Hare in 1949 after the World War II aviator Butch O’Hare, but they never changed the airport code.
Why I Looked It Up
I just always wondered.