Bye Bye Northwest Airlines, Pan Am, Eastern, Ozark, National, Braniff and Trans World Airlines

Northwest Airlines was founded on September 1, 1926, by Colonel Lewis Brittin. Based in Minnesota, the name for the airline referred to theNorthwest Territory, not it's early days as main carrier between the UnitedStates and the Orient.

Northwest did rebrand itself to Northwest OrientAirlines in the 1950s but did not change its legal name from NorthwestAirlines. They dropped "Orient" from their operating name and repaintedaircraft after buying Republic Airlines in the late 1980s.

That move createdthe three hub (Minneapolis, Memphis, and Republic's hub in Detroit) systemthat made them one of the nation's top airlines.