The walls along the hallway between Atlanta’s Concourses D and E had always been forgettable.

Now, they’re hard to miss.

A new permanent exhibit, “Blue Skies: 100 Years of the Atlanta Airport,” opened there Thursday, and the space is suddenly packed with stories of the people and milestones that comprise Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s centennial history.

There’s a wooden propeller from one of the first biplanes used in 1911 as entertainment at the Atlanta motor speedway that predated the airport south of downtown.

There are real pieces of airmail flown on Atlanta’s very first commercial flight in September 1926. Dedication plaques of long-gone terminal buildings torn down to make way for what is now the world’s busiest airport.

A rotating beacon light exactly the same model as what sat atop Atlanta’s 1950s-era control tower; an Emilio Pucci designed Braniff Airways flight attendant uniform; and memorabilia from the Eastern Airlines strike in 1989.

“There’s a lot of depth here. If you’re at the airport and you have the opportunity to spend some time, you can really take everything in. Or you can just stroll through,” said Jackson McQuigg, vice president of properties and a transportation historian at the Atlanta History Center who worked on the research and sourcing of the exhibit.

“But the idea is to give you new things to find every time you come to the airport and see in the exhibit. We really wanted every type of job at the airport represented. We wanted all the carriers to be represented.”

Hartsfield-Jackson launched a celebration of its centennial last year, marking 100 years since the signing of a lease for the airport on April 16, 1925.

The $3.5 million exhibit, originally set to open in 2023, was funded by the city of Atlanta’s 1% for the arts ordinance and put together in conjunction with the Atlanta History Center and Gary Lee Super Design Associates.

The “Blue Skies: 100 Years of the Atlanta Airport” exhibit is situated in between Concourses D and E inside the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. (Jason Getz/AJC)

There’s a copy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s passport application and one of the first maternity pilot uniforms ever made, donated by Laura Savino, a former United Airlines first officer who flew in and out of Atlanta frequently. (She had to take a “mental acuity test” every four weeks to make sure she wasn’t “unstable,” she recalled.)

The stories of Amelia Earhart’s visit to the city in 1934, of the city’s first Black-owned carrier, Air Atlanta, and of the national impact of former Mayor Maynard Jackson’s minority contracting program are memorialized, too.

Benjamin Austin, senior manager of the airport’s art program, said the idea started in 2021, not necessarily with the centennial in mind.

“We just wanted to tell the story of the history of this place, of the people who built it,” he said.

They did know they wanted specific Atlanta artifacts and stories, not generic aviation history memorabilia, he said.

“One of the goals was to be able to have an artifact and then have a photo of it actually in this space, from 50 years ago, 75 years ago,” he said.

And they had prime empty real estate between Concourses D and E.

The exhibit pushes the boundaries of that hallway space, designer Gary Super said. And it has many layers.

There are model aircraft hanging from the ceiling, airplane skin-inspired walls and moving, clacking flip boards that feature the airport’s ever-growing passenger volumes over time and historically accurate inaugural Atlanta flights from airlines through the years.

The “Blue Skies: 100 Years of the Atlanta Airport” exhibit, originally set to open in 2023, was funded by the city of Atlanta’s 1% for the arts ordinance and put together in conjunction with the Atlanta History Center and Gary Lee Super Design Associates. (Jason Getz/AJC)

The exhibit has “the fun stuff, the pretty stuff on the front,” Super said, like the rotating beacon light.

“But when you really go through the exhibit, it really talks about the soul of the airport, the people and what’s behind the airport.”

Remarkably, there is silent footage of the first commercial flight to land on a grassy Atlanta runway in 1926 and of the first female licensed pilot in Georgia, Gladys Poole, and her all-female mechanic crew working in overalls and heels in the 1920s.

From the ceiling hangs the airport’s own journey through time via aircraft, beginning with a Pitcairn Mailwing airmail plane from the 1920s, on to a Delta Air Lines 1996 Atlanta Olympics passenger jet and a possible look into the future with a rare model of Doraville-based hypersonic plane developer Hermeus’ Halcyon prototype.

Airport General Manager Ricky Smith called the exhibit “one of the most remarkable historical renditions of an airport evolution that I’ve seen outside of the Smithsonian Institution.”

“It doesn’t just talk about the facilities, it talks about the people and the millions of decisions that have been made in the last 100 years.”

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport General Manager Ricky Smith called the exhibit “one of the most remarkable historical renditions of an airport evolution that I’ve seen outside of the Smithsonian Institution.” (Jason Getz/AJC)

The airport is considering new ways to encourage passengers to pass through the exhibit if they have the time — to take a walk instead of the Plane Train every now and again, he said.

And Hartsfield-Jackson’s final empty walkway space, between Concourses C and D, is set to get its own fine art installation too, Austin said, though the details are still under wraps.