ELWOOD — One glance at the smudged, tattered postcard and it’s obvious that the Elwood Airport, closing Sept. 1, is more than just another local business lost to economic misfortune.

The postcard has kept bold colors in spite of its age. The image clearly displays a carhop waitress kneeling on the wing of an old airplane. She is serving drinks on a white tray to a pilot and his passengers.

For some, the airport’s closing marks the end of an era where the skies were highways. Back then, Elwood provided the only one-stop shop for ordering drive-in food from the jump seat.

The airport is slated to shut down but its iconic restaurant will remain open.

Airport Restaurant owner Al Swinefurth said the closing should not affect his business dramatically. “The aircraft accounted for about 10 percent of my business.”

The loss of familiar scenery could deter patrons, Swinefurth said. “There will be an impact. Some people came out to eat just to see the planes, too.”

Swinefurth is confident that his loyal pilot friends will find their way to the restaurant, despite the inability to fly in.

“A lot of the guys that used to fly in, they’ll still drive over. They’ll still come and see us because we’re friends. Ours is just a local restaurant and everybody knows everybody. I cook for them on the weekends and I know how they like their food,” he said.

Although his business will remain intact, Swinefurth said the airport closure is a significant blow to local morale. “Do I hate to see the airport close? Yes, I do. That just means that Elwood Indiana is losing one more thing.”

The airport has not been profitable, said airport co-owner Ann Brewer. If it weren’t for the restaurant and surrounding crops, it would have closed long ago, Brewer said. “Frankly, it doesn’t pay its own way.”

Widely known as the world’s first fly-in drive-in, Elwood Airport was founded in 1946 by Don and Georgia Orbaugh of Elwood.

The airport offered sod runways for single-engine planes before gaining wider attention in 1952 when it opened an ice cream shack. By 1953, a dining room was added to the shack and young girls wearing green uniforms with boxy green hats served customers on their planes.

The Orbaughs’ daughters, Ann Brewer of Elwood and Donna Ewing of Anderson, now share ownership in the business.

Brewer said the car hop idea came and went with time. By the end of the ’50s, the novelty ended. “Most people when they flew in, didn’t really want to sit and eat in their airplane.”

Brewer said the airport was a labor of love for her father, who was a pilot and flight instructor.