 It is the airport from which early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson) took off on the night of February 3, 1959, after a concert at the Surf Ballroom in nearby Clear Lake, Iowa, en route to Fargo, N.D.The plane crashed a few miles west of the airport in an historic event later referred to as the Day the Music Died.Holly, Valens, Richardson and pilot Roger Peterson all died in the accident.