August 11th - Is this the only defunct control tower tour in the world?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 11 August 2025
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Denver Stapleton Airport – then the fifth-busiest in the world – closed down in 1995. The last flight out was Continental 34 to London Gatwick. You would never know an airport was here – everything has been demolished, except for the control tower, which has somehow survived. Sean Henson started running Tower Tours this year, and I joined him last Friday.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's Inelection Channel podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | I am at a very unusual location today. |
| 0:07.0 | It is the control room, Denver Stapleton Air Bridge. |
| 0:12.0 | If you're having to know your airports, you'll know that Stapleton Airport closed down in 1995. |
| 0:20.0 | Yet the control tower is still here. |
| 0:22.6 | It's really interesting to see what they've done with it. |
| 0:25.6 | On the ground floor, there is a bottom of a restaurant. |
| 0:29.6 | On the third floor, you can go axe throwing, you can play darts. |
| 0:33.6 | But I'm here because I'm on the only control tower tool that I know of anywhere in the world. |
| 0:41.3 | Sean Henson, who's been professional tool guide for years, decided that he could create a tool, |
| 0:49.3 | not just aimed at aviation enthusiasts, but at everyone about the history of this airport, |
| 0:56.5 | what happened to it, and more particularly the many human stories associated with it. |
| 1:02.2 | So, welcome, Shaw, and congratulations. |
| 1:05.0 | What were you thinking of when you saw, oh, Control Tower, ESR and Toulers? |
| 1:10.2 | Well, I had the opportunity to come up here, and I just, I saw so much potential on the |
| 1:15.7 | walls because there was so much history that happened here. |
| 1:19.0 | And if you look around the neighborhood, you would never know that this used to be |
| 1:22.5 | the fifth busiest airport in the entire world. |
| 1:25.2 | And the only reminder is this tower and I couldn't help |
| 1:28.2 | visualize all of the history on the walls and locking people up and sharing those stories with |
| 1:32.8 | them. You've got some aviation history yourself? I do. Yeah. Well, I've been a lifelong |
| 1:38.4 | lover in all things aviation, ever since I was a small kid. And I grew up to be a flight attendant. I did that for a little over a decade and I've been a private pilot for longer than that now. So yeah, I do. |
... |
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