The Northwest Airlines History Center

Northwest Airlines History Center Preserves The History Of Minnesota's First Hometown Airline And Its 13 Legacy Partners - Celebrating 22 Years in Operation, and Planning for Growth to Serve New Generations!

The ability to go anywhere in the world your business travel required - or your vacation plans led you - Northwest Airlines was the one airline that would fly you directly to that destination from the Upper Midwest. Without the comprehensive and convenient regional, national, and global service provided over the past century by NWA, Republic, North Central, and their associated carriers, the Twin Cities and North Country would never have attained the high standard of living and concentration of top-tier companies, cultural institutions, and educational centers we enjoy.

Northwest Airlines is gone. Northwest's legacy, however, lives on, and you can visit it, touch it, and re-live it at the Northwest Airlines History Center. Our compact museum location, on the 3rd floor of the Crowne Plaza AiRE Hotel, East Bloomington, near the Mall of America and MSP International Airport, is where the history of Northwest - and the history of the 13 legacy airlines that were part of Northwest's corporate family tree - are waiting for your visit...no boarding pass required! 

For 2024, with your support we replaced an obsolete computer at our archives site, revamped museum displays and acquired new mannequins to better display and preserve uniforms, and conducted research to help us map out a path to funding and building a permanent hangar-sized facility. However, in October, our museum sustained flooding from a broken sprinkler pipe many floors above ours at the Crowne Plaza, forcing us to close to the public until cleanup can be completed.

While we wait for the hotel's insurance to fund replacement of ceiling tiles, repainting, and deep cleaning, we are not sitting still. In cooperation with the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame, we have recently been donated films and other media needing digitization. These recordings, some of which go back to the  World War II era, will help us show and tell the stories of history with the actors' own words! We will be using converted video to support exhibits, off-site presentations, and our newsletter; as direct uploads to YouTube and our website and social media channels; and as assets we can provide (potentially as a revenue generator) to other media organizations. 

The immediacy of video is a powerful tool to engage younger audiences! We already have the raw materials - but we need to get them converted to be useful!

Our Give to the Max 2024 goal of $5,000 will help us get a good head start on converting roughly a closet's worth of reel-to-reel films, and will also fund purchase of several flat-screen video displays for the exhibit space at our museum.

Help us properly preserve, present, and promote Minnesota's commercial aviation heritage. Be a friend of the museum and archives by donating today, and by spreading the word! Our all-volunteer organization appreciates your generous support. 

Northwest Airlines History Center

Archives and Administration Office

10100 Flying Cloud Drive, Suite A306

Eden Prairie, MN  55347-4016