By Debbie L. Sklar / Special to the OB Rag Today, Mission Bay Park is one of San Diego’s most recognizable recreational destinations, filled with beaches, sailboats, paddleboards, bike paths and visitors enjoying the waterfront. But before the bay became the sprawling aquatic park San Diegans know today, the shoreline was home to something unexpected: a small airport. Known as Peik Airport, the airfield operated along the southwestern shore of Mission Bay during the mid-20th century. At the time, the area looked nothing like today’s landscaped parks and beaches. Much of Mission Bay was made up of tidal marshes, mud flats and undeveloped shoreline. The airport’s story began with Arnold H. Peik, a pilot who arrived in San Diego in the 1930s. A 1967 San Diego Evening Tribune article by John McPeek (reprinted in PB newsletter below) recalled Peik’s arrival as a young barnstorming pilot flying a Stinson monoplane into San Diego before eventually establishing his flying operation near Mission Bay. “It all began when a young barnstorming pilot in a battered Stinson monoplane flew into San Diego” in 1934, the article recalled.