JANET R. DALY BEDNAREK
False Beacon: Regional Planning and the
Location of Dayton's Municipal Airport
Introduction
At first glance, one might logically
conclude that the location of Dayton's
municipal airport represented a case of
deliberate regional planning.
Approximately eleven miles north of the
city's central business district, its
placement near the city of Vandalia,
Ohio, suggests that those who chose that
location had an image or vision of the
city of Dayton which extended beyond
the city's limits. Closer examination,
however, reveals that neither a vision
of a Greater Dayton nor regional
planning had much to do with the location
of Dayton's airport. Rather, it had more
to do with, first, who owned the
property, and second, the technology of
aviation in 1928.
The people involved in building Dayton's
municipal airport included some
of the most powerful and influential
businessmen in the city. Several of
these men, including Edward Deeds, had
close ties to the infant airline indus-
try.1 Those men had the necessary local
clout to push through their plans for
a municipal airport, even in the face of
competition from other plans. When
the initial private venture failed,
those same business leaders mounted a drive
to purchase the airport from its
creditors and simply presented it to the city.
Further, they understood the new airline
industry, especially its technological
limitations.
Efforts to establish a municipal airport
began in earnest in 1926. One
might wonder why the home of the Wright
brothers took so long to establish
its own airport. Part of the reason lay
in the fact that up to 1926, the avia-
tion industry was an extremely risky
business. It remained risky after 1926,
but by that time the national government
had taken two actions which less-
ened the risk somewhat and offered
considerable incentives. On May 20,
1926, Congress passed the Air Commerce
Act. That act, pushed by Secretary
of Commerce Herbert Hoover, gave the
Department of Commerce powers to
Janet R. Daly Bednarek is Assistant
Professor of History at the University of Dayton.
1. Deeds' son, Charles, was a major
stockholder in and treasurer of Pratt & Whitney, an
aviation engine manufacturer. In 1928,
Pratt & Whitney became part of the United Aircraft &
Transportation Company which also
controlled United Airlines. See Henry Ladd Smith,
Airways: The History of Commercial
Aviation in the United States (Washington,
D.C., 1991),
124, 233-35.
126 OHIO HISTORY
both regulate and encourage commercial
aviation in the United States.
Combined with the first Airmail Act
(Kelly Law) passed in 1925, which dic-
tated that the Post Office's airmail
routes be turned over to private carriers,
government actions in the mid-1920s
provided a significant boost to commer-
cial aviation.2 By 1928, when
the group of Dayton businessmen had estab-
lished their airport (which would become
the city's municipal airport), com-
mercial aviation was on a growth track
that would continue even during the
Depression decade of the 1930s. The
promise of profit dictated when the air-
port would be established. And, although
the location of Dayton's airport
might suggest an effort at regional
planning, personalities and the limitations
of technology played the major roles in
determining where the city's munici-
pal airport would locate.
Background: Locating Dayton's
Municipal Airport
If an airport is defined as a place
designed for airplanes to take off and land,
then the Dayton area can probably lay
claim to being the home of the world's
first sustained airport. While some
might claim that the dunes near Kitty
Hawk, North Carolina, where Orville and
Wilbur Wright made their first four
successful flights, served as the first
airport, the brothers abandoned that loca-
tion shortly after December 17, 1903.
The following year, they established a
new airport, complete with hangar, for
the sustained testing of their new in-
vention. During 1904 and 1905, the
Wrights conducted test flights in an
open field east of the city, next to the
tracks of the Dayton and Springfield
Interurban, known as the Huffman
Prairie. There they developed the world's
first practical airplane, the Wright
Flyer III. From 1909 until 1915, the
Wright Airplane Company operated a
flying school on the Huffman Prairie.
Orville Wright then sold the company.
The flying school remained for an-
other year, but in 1917 local business
leaders purchased the Huffman land, and
adjoining acres, and leased it to the
government. The original airport, thus,
became part of Wilbur Wright Field, a
World War I training base.3
Once the Huffman Prairie became part of
a military base, civic leaders in
Dayton had a great deal of success in
attracting military air activity to the
area. In addition to Wilbur Wright
Field, located several miles from the city,
Dayton also provided a home for McCook
Field. Headquarters of the Air
Service's experimental station, McCook
Field stood on land along the Great
Miami River near to where that river and
the Mad River converge, about a
mile from the center of town. When threatened
with the closing of McCook
2. Smith, Airways, 94-102; John
D. Hicks, Republican Ascendancy, 1921-1933 (New York,
1960), 176-77.
3. See Lois Walker and Shelby E.
Wickham, From Huffman Prairie to the Moon: The
History of Wright-Patterson Air Force
Base (Washington, D.C., 1988), 1-2,
11-14, 25-30.
Dayton's Municipal Airport 127
Field in the early 1920s, civic leaders
banded together to buy additional land
near Wilbur Wright Field, which they
presented to the government for one
dollar in 1924. Originally known as
Wright Field, then later divided into
Wright Field and Patterson Field, that
land is now the location of Wright-
Patterson Air Force Base and it
continues as a center of aerospace activity.
However, in the mid- to late-1920s, many
people saw the profits from air
activity coming not from the military,
but from the civilian side of the econ-
omy. The money to be made in aviation
came from the carrying of the mail.
The post office experimented with
airmail as early as 1911. Regular airmail
service, initially flown by Air Service
pilots, began in 1918. By the early
1920s, however, private aircraft
operators started agitating for the post office
to turn the airmail service over to
private carriers. In 1925, Congress passed
the Airmail Act (or Kelly Act) which was
designed to "'encourage commercial
aviation and to authorize the postmaster
general to contract for the mail ser-
vice."' In turning the mail service
over to the fledgling commercial airlines,
Congress hoped to help build a strong
commercial aviation industry in the
United States. With the income from the
airmail, companies could build
routes and, it was hoped, eventually
develop a system of air routes across the
country. The airmail subsidy, as it came
to be called, created the opportunity
for airlines to operate at a profit.5
An airline which wished to survive needed
an airmail contract; a city which wished
to have airline service needed to have
an airport at which the airmail planes
could land.
Beginning in 1926, several parties made
bids to become Dayton's official
municipal airport and, thereby, gain
airmail and other commercial traffic. The
Rinehart-Whelan Company, operators of
the Moraine Flying Field (see South
Field, below), went to the city with
their plan in April 1926. Rinehart-
Whelan offered the use of their airport,
five miles south of Dayton along the
Springboro Pike, as the municipal
airport without cost to the city. The city
accepted the following month, and for
the next year or so the Moraine Flying
Field served as Dayton's official
municipal airport. The first commercial ser-
vice to the city of Dayton arrived
approximately one year later when the
Embry-Riddle Company of Cincinnati,
Ohio, inaugurated regular service be-
tween Louisville, Kentucky, and
Cleveland, Ohio, with stops in Cincinnati,
Dayton, Columbus, and Akron, Ohio.6
4. Ibid., 89-90, 108-14.
5. See Smith, Airways, 50-117.
6. Letter, Clerk of the Commission to
Mr. F. O. Eichelberger (City Manager), April 16, 1926
in Dayton Airport Records, MS-59,
Archives and Special Collections, Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Library, Wright State University, Box 1,
File 1, hereafter Airport Records; Letter, City
Attorney to Mr. Eichelberger, May 11,
1926, Airport Records, Box 1, File 1; Letter, Wayne G.
Lee, Managing Director, Dayton Chamber
of Commerce, to City Manager and City
Commission, May 16, 1927, City Manager
Files, Archives and Special Collections, Paul
Lawrence Dunbar Library, Wright State
University, File 8-K 1927, hereafter City Manager
Files.
128 OHIO HISTORY
By the summer of 1927, however, plans
were underway to build a new mu-
nicipal airport. At first civic leaders
turned their attentions to McCook Field.
Its history was tied to the careers of
two of the most powerful civic leaders in
Dayton's history, Edward Deeds and
Charles Kettering. Deeds and Kettering
began their Dayton careers at the
National Cash Register Company (NCR).
In 1909, the two worked together on the
invention of an electric ignition sys-
tem
for automobiles. They then
incorporated the Dayton Engineering
Laboratories Company, or Delco, to
manufacture their invention. The fol-
lowing year, Kettering followed with his
automotive self-starter. They sold
Delco to United Motors (a forerunner to
General Motors) in 1916. The trans-
action made them millionaires and tied
much of their fortunes, and that of
Dayton, to General Motors.7
The story of how and why the Air Service
established McCook Field in
Dayton is a rather complex and tangled
one. In August 1917, Edward Deeds
accepted a commission as a colonel in
the Signal Corps Reserve and became
Chief, Equipment Division. When the
Signal Corps asked him where they
should locate an experimental station,
Deeds first recommended that they
build it on an airfield located on his
private estate south of Dayton. At the
time, the Dayton Wright Aircraft Company
(of which Deeds had been a
founder, but in which he had apparently
sold his ownership stake) was using
South Field (or the Moraine Flying
Field, operated by Rinehart-Whelan by
1926) as a test field. As an
alternative, Deeds suggested the Signal Corps use
North Field, located near downtown
Dayton, which Deeds and Kettering had
purchased in 1917. The Signal Corps
accepted the proposal. Deeds then sold
his half interest to Kettering, who then
sold the entire property to another
company he and Deeds founded, the Dayton
Metal Products Company. The
company leased the land to the Signal
Corps. The United States Government
abandoned the site in July 1927 upon
completion of the new facilities at
Wright Field.8
By the time the government abandoned
McCook Field, ownership of most
of the land, by some means or another,
had transferred to General Motors (of
which both Deeds and Kettering were
major stockholders and officers). Even
though GM placed a price of $600,000 on
the land, it apparently had no inter-
est in selling. A local newspaper
article speculated that General Motors
might be interested in building
airplanes on the site.9 Regardless, the price
7. Article, "Dayton Boasts of Sixth
Air Station," undated, Airport Clipping File, Dayton Main
Library; Stuart W. Leslie, Boss
Kettering (New York, 1983), 38-58.
8. Walker and Wickham, Huffman
Prairie to the Moon, 27, 88-90; Isaac F. Marcosson,
Colonel Deeds, Industrial Builder (New York, 1947), 218, 275-76; Diana Good Cornelisse,
Remarkable Journey: The Wright Field Heritage in Photographs (Air Force Systems
Command: History Office, Aeronautical
Systems Division, 1991), xxiii; Leslie, Boss Kettering,
71.
9. Article, "Dayton Lays Plans for
New Airport," undated, Airport Clipping File, Dayton
Dayton's Municipal Airport 129 |
|
tag was too high and many civic leaders interested in airport development ap- parently felt that the site was too small.10 In any event, by late 1927 the McCook Field site had been abandoned as a site for the proposed airport. In a letter to Mr. George Sudheimer, Commissioner, Department of Public Utilities, St. Paul, Minnesota, Dayton city manager Fred Eichelberger indi- cated that in 1926 the city had purchased 500 acres of land, approximately three miles from the center of town, for use as a sewage disposal site. Apparently, after abandoning the idea of using the McCook Field site, civic leaders developed tentative plans to use part of the sewage disposal site as the location of a municipally owned airport. Information on this plan is scarce. Aside from the reference in the City Manger files, a newspaper clippings col- lection at Dayton's main library contains an undated article outlining a pro-
Main Library; Article, "Dayton Boasts of Sixth Air Station," undated, Airport Clipping File, Dayton Main Library. 10. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger) to Mr. George C. Sudheimer, Commissioner, Dept. of Public Utilities, St. Paul, Minn., August 25, 1927, Airport Records, Box 1, File 2. |
130 OHIO
HISTORY
posal to build a new airport on land
three miles south of the city. According
to that article, city manager
Eichelberger first suggested using part of the
property, originally purchased for
sewage disposal, as a landing field.
Following his suggestion, local civic
leaders including Charles H. Paul, a lo-
cal consulting engineer, and Frederick
H. Rike, president of Rike's
Department Store, studied the idea.11
In both the August letter to Mr.
Sudheimer and a September 1927 letter to
a reporter for the Memphis
Press-Scimitar, Eichelberger wrote that the plans
for the landing field on the sewage
disposal site were "immature." However,
he felt that the proposed municipal
landing field could be "occupied as such
within eighteen months."12 Once
again, though, plans changed. In late 1927
the city petitioned the government to
use Wright Field for airmail planes and,
in the meantime, civic leaders turned
their attention to a location approxi-
mately eleven miles north of the city,
near Vandalia, Ohio.
In November 1927, City Manager
Eichelberger received a letter from Air
Corps Brigadier General W. E. Gilmore
acknowledging that the city had made
application "to temporarily use
Wright Field for airmail planes to land on."
Gilmore endorsed the idea. In a
subsequent letter, he wrote Eichelberger that
the War Department needed assurance that
Dayton would use the facilities at
Wright Field only on a temporary basis.
Eichelberger replied that the city an-
ticipated using the field for
approximately three years. At that
time,
December 1927, apparently the idea of
using the sewage disposal site had, for
one reason or another, fallen on
disfavor. He wrote General Gilmore that he
expected to ask voters to approve money
for the purchase of a landing field
site in November 1928 and estimated that
within two years of that date the
city would have the airport up and
running.13 On that assurance, Secretary of
War Dwight F. Davis granted a revocable
license for the use of a portion of
Wright Field to the city in March 1928.
Dayton then issued Continental Air
Lines a license to use the field
"in the carrying of the United States mails."14
11. Ibid.; Article, "Dayton Lays
Plans for New Airport, undated, Airport Clipping File,
Dayton Main Library.
12. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger)
to Mr. George Sudheimer, Commissioner, Dept. of
Public Utilities, St. Paul, Minn.,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 2; Letter, City Manager
(Eichelberger) to Mr. D. L. Hogan,
Reporter, The Memphis Press-Scimitar, Editorial
Department, Memphis, Tenn., September 2,
1927, Airport Records, Box 1, File 2.
13. Letter, Brig. General W. E. Gilmore,
Air Corps to Mr. F. O. Eichelberger, City Manager,
Dayton, Ohio, November 10, 1927, Airport
Records, Box 1, File 2; Letter, Brig. General W. E.
Gilmore, Air Corps to Mr. F. O.
Eichelberger, City Manager, Dayton, Ohio, December 3, 1927,
Airport Records Box 1, File 2; Letter,
City Manger (Eichelberger) to Brigadier General W. E.
Gilmore Air Corps, Wright Field, Dayton,
Ohio, December 9, 1927, Airport Records, Box 1,
File 2.
14. Letter Brig. General W. E. Gilmore,
Air Corps, to Mr. F. O. Eichelberger, City Manger,
Dayton, Ohio, March 21, 1928, Airport
Records, Box 1, File 4; Letter City Manger
(Eichelberger) to Mr. R. P. Cunningham,
Pres., Continental Air Lines, Inc., March 22, 1928,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 4.
Dayton's Municipal Airport
131
It seems, however, that a number of
Dayton's business leaders were not
willing to wait three years for the city
to establish its own airport.
Consequently, within days of finalizing
the city's agreement with Wright
Field, a group of local (and not so
local) businessmen announced that they
had purchased land near the small town
of Vandalia. There they planned to
build a Dayton municipal airport. A
newspaper article at the time listed
many of the businessmen involved. They
included E. G. Beichler, president
of Frigidaire (a subsidiary of General
Motors), Frederick B. Patterson, presi-
dent of National Cash Register, Charles
F. Kettering, vice president of
General Motors and president of the
General Motors Research Corporation
(and by 1928 a resident primarily of
Detroit),15 Frank Hill Smith, construc-
tion engineer (Dayton and New York
City),16 and George Mead, paper manu-
facturer. Later records indicated that
Edward Deeds and Frederick Rike were
also involved.17
Those businessmen incorporated the
Dayton Airport Company in March
1928 and, by selling shares, raised
$300,000 to buy the property and establish
the airport.18 By August 1928 the group had transformed some of the land
into a working airport. In that month a
Captain B. D. Collyer from the
Fairchild Aircraft Manufacture Company
was scheduled to arrive at the new
airport. Charles H. Paul, General Manger
of the Dayton Airport, Inc., wrote
Eichelberger asking him to serve on a
committee planning a reception for the
captain. The group was anxious to
impress him because rumor had it that the
Fairchild Company was interested in
establishing a new propeller factory, and
Dayton Airport, Inc., hoped they would
locate it on their property.19
Even though the owners of the airport
near Vandalia called it the Dayton
Airport, apparently Dayton city
officials felt no special relationship to it. In
January 1929, Eichelberger wrote Mr.
Henry A. Jencks of International
Airports Corp., the following:
15. Kettering moved to Detroit in 1925
when the research division transferred there from
Dayton. He did move back and forth
between the two cities, but in the late 1920s he was
spending a great deal of his time in
Detroit. Leslie, Boss Kettering, 182-83.
16. This information comes from the
letterhead of a message sent from Frank Hill Smith to
the Dayton City Commission in 1933.
Airport Records, Box 1, File 5.
17. Article, "Dayton Airport Work
to Start in A Few Weeks," March 28, 1928, Airport
Clipping File, Dayton Main Library;
Article, Dayton Daily News, Wednesday, October 8, 1952,
James M. Cox Papers, MS-2, Box 6, File
9, hereafter the Cox Papers.
18. Ibid.
19. Letter, George W. Lane, Howard
Keyes, and Charles Paul, Dayton Airport Inc., to Mr.
Fred O. Eichelberger, City Manger,
Dayton, Ohio, August 20, 1928, Airport Records, Box 1,
File 3; Letter, Charles H. Paul, Dayton
Industrial Association, to Mr. F. 0. Eichelberger, August
21, 1928, Airport Records, Box 1, File
3. Dayton Airport, Inc., and the Dayton Industrial
Association shared a common address (922
Dayton Savings Building) and had overlapping
membership. Common to both were
Frederick B. Patterson, president of both, Frederick H.
Rike, vice president of both, John F.
Ahlers, secretary of both, and Charles H. Paul, general
manager of both.
132 OHIO
HISTORY
At the present time, there is nothing
definite relative to a Municipal Airport for
this City. We are fortunate in being
located in close proximity to Wright Field
and facilities have been afforded by the
government to us for the handling of air-
mail from that field. In addition there
are several other Airports already in exis-
tence here. None of which, however, are
municipally owned, so that the immedi-
ate need of a Municipal Airport is not
apparent. There had been some talk, how-
ever, of the City owning its own
Airport. Should this materialize to something
definite, you will be notified...20
From this letter it seems that the city
felt a closer relationship to Wright
Field than to the new "municipal
airport" near Vandalia, and it still had plans
to build its own airport.
The situation changed somewhat, however,
the following month. In
February 1929, the city received a
proposal from the Johnson Flying Service,
a local company, "for the use of
its airport near Dayton for receiving the
Dayton airmail."21 Dayton Airport, Inc., had leased the
airport to Johnson in
1928.22 The city accepted the offer and informed
General Gilmore that "all
the arrangements have been completed for
the transfer of the airmail from
Wright Field to the Vandalia field,
effective next Monday, February 25th."
The city did not agree to the transfer
because Johnson offered a good deal. In
fact, the terms were identical to those
that the city had with the government
for the use of Wright Field. In his
letter to General Gilmore, Eichelberger
stated that the city "consented to
this change for the reason that the new air-
port needs all the help we can give
it" and moving the mail service to the new
field would not adversely effect
operations at Wright Field.23 Though
that ac-
tion could have helped the fledgling
airport, it was far from an endorsement of
it as Dayton's municipal airport. Note
that the Eichelberger letter referred to
it as "the Vandalia field."
Regardless, Dayton's business community
held a dedication ceremony for
the new airport, called Dayton Airport,
on July 31 and August 1, 1929.24
Despite holding the airmail facilities
contract, within a few years the airport
was in trouble, the Johnson Flying
Service was looking to the city for some
help, and the airport had some new
competition.
In June 1932 E. A. Johnson, president of
the Johnson Flying Service,
wrote the city looking for relief. He
asserted that the mail service required
20. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger)
to Mr. Henry A. Jencks, Vice-President,
International Airports Corps., January
11, 1929, Airport Records, Box 1, File 4.
21. Letter, City Manger (Eichelberger)
to Mr. Harshman (City Attorney), February 11, 1929,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 4.
22. Article, Dayton Daily News, Wednesday,
April 29, 1936, Cox Papers, Box 6, File 9.
23. Letter, City Manger (Eichelberger)
to Mr. Harshman (City Attorney), February 11, 1929,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 4; Letter
City Manager (Eichelberger) to Brigadier General W. E.
Gilmore, Air Corps, Wright Field,
February 21, 1929, Airport Records, Box 1, File 4.
24. List, Committees on Dedication of
Dayton Airport, July 31st and August 1st, 1929,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 4.
Dayton's Municipal Airport 133
that the airport maintain "a beacon
light all night, and boundary, obstruction,
flood, and other lights during landing
periods." These were required in order
for the city of Dayton to have airmail
service. Johnson also said that the
Dayton Airport was the "only one
among the larger cities where Airmail
Planes stop that is not municipally
owned and operated." Since the airmail
was "distinctly a Municipal project"
the city should reimburse his company
for those expenses, approximately sixty
dollars per month, "a small portion
of our entire operating expense."25 Johnson Flying Service paid Dayton
Airport, Inc., $9000 per year for the
rights to operate the airport. When
Johnson gave up his lease the following
year, he said he had lost $50,000 be-
tween 1928 and 1933.26
Appended to the bottom of Johnson's
letter was a brief note from Frank
Hill Smith, president, Dayton Airport,
Inc. In the note, Smith, indicating
that he had taken control of the airport
corporation, suggested another part of
the airport's problems. Smith held a
$45,000 mortgage on the airport prop-
erty, mostly in buildings. In addition,
Dayton Airport Inc., and Smith, also
owed money to the Winters National Bank
and Trust of Dayton. Even
though the Dayton Chamber of Commerce
called a special meeting of its
Aviation Committee to discuss the
financial problems of, significantly, "The
Vandalia Airport," and Eichelberger
wrote Johnson that the City Commission
would consider his request, the airport
apparently received no relief in 1932.27
In February 1933 Frank Hill Smith once
again appealed to the City
Commission. In his letter he suggested
another reason behind the airport's
financial problems (besides the
mortgages and the Depression). When the
city used Wright Field for delivery of
its airmail, it paid the government a
monthly fee. When the airmail service
transferred to the new airport, most
people involved, including the city
manager (who, as noted, wanted to help
the new enterprise), assumed that the
city would pay the same fee to the oper-
ators of the new airport. However,
legal problems apparently kept the city
from paying the fee. Even once new
legislation cleared the legal hurdle, the
city made no definite arrangements to
pay a fee.28
Hill then repeated the argument Johnson
had used the year before. He stated
that as a privately owned field, the
airport could not compete with munici-
pally owned airports. Further, he
asserted: "The entire Airport business is
25. Letter, E. A Johnson, Johnson Flying
Service, Inc., to F. 0. Eichelberger, Manager, City
of Dayton, June 7, 1932, Airport
Records, Box 1, File 5.
26. Article, Dayton Daily News, Wednesday,
April 29, 1936, Cox Papers, Box 6, File 9.
27. Letter, Wayne G. Ley, Managing
Director, Dayton Chamber of Commerce, to Mr.
Howard Smith, Chairman, et al, June 7,
1932, Airport Records, Box 1, File 5; Letter, City
Manager (Eichelberger), to Mr. E. A.
Johnson, Pres., Johnson Flying Service, Inc., June 8,
1932 (Airport Records, Box 1, File 5);
Article, Dayton Daily News, Wednesday, October 8,
1952, Cox Papers, Box 6, File 9.
28. Letter, Frank Hill Smith, President,
Dayton Airport, Inc., to Commission of the City of
Dayton, Ohio, February 21, 1933, Airport
Records, Box 1, File 5.
134 OHIO HISTORY
more of a public service, where no
direct charges can be made, than a com-
mercial business . . . . He
concluded that
.. .the City of Dayton has a moral
obligation to the community as a whole, to
furnish sufficient financial relief to keep the Airport
active during the present
times so that when business in general
does pick up again, the Dayton Municipal
Airport will be ready to serve the
public as any other public service department,
since there is no other field here
suitable.
By 1933, Smith believed that the best
answer was for the city to lease the
airport for $200 per month.29 Smith and Dayton Airport, Inc., though, had
a
little competition.
The records of the City Manager's Office
contain a proposal from J. H.
Hanauer, Manager, The East Dayton
Airport. In it, Hanauer proposed that the
city lease that field,
"approximately three and one-half miles from the Court
House, over paved roads, which is a
straight and direct route to the intersec-
tion of Third and Main Streets,
requiring eight minutes travel by automo-
bile," as the municipal airport. He
offered the airport to the city for one dol-
lar per year, plus "an annual
maintenance of $1000.00." The city would re-
ceive "all revenue derived from the
passenger and mail lines" while the other
revenues (i.e., from the sale of
gasoline and oil, training fees, etc.) would go
to the operator.30
The available records do not indicate
how much, if any, consideration the
city gave to Hanauer's proposal.
However, by the end of 1933, the city and
Dayton Airport, Inc., were in serious
negotiations over an airport lease.
Interestingly, a December 1933 letter
from Frank Hill Smith to the
Commission offered the Dayton Airport to
the city on much the same terms
offered by Hanauer-a dollar per year,
plus $1000 to cover "legal taxes, insur-
ance, heating and lighting."31
Those terms, however, probably were not in-
spired by the Hanauer proposal. Rather,
they grew out of the circumstances
created in 1933 with the inauguration of
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
By late 1933, the negotiations between
the city and Smith had gained a cer-
tain urgency. As part of his New Deal's
relief efforts, President Franklin
Roosevelt took money from the Public
Works Administration (PWA) and
created the Civil Works Administration
(CWA), designed to spend money
quickly for public works which would
create jobs during the winter of 1933-
1934. In the last months of 1933 both
the city and Dayton Airport, Inc.,
29. Ibid.
30. Proposal, "East Dayton
Airport," no date, Airport Records, Box 1, File 5. The proposal
included an aerial photograph of the
East Dayton Airport which indicated four runways.
Three sod runways fanned out from the
main hangar (two 1800 ft. and one 2300 ft) and the
fourth sod runway, 2300 ft., intersected
the other three.
31. Letter, Frank Hill Smith, President,
Dayton Airport, Inc., to Commission of the City of
Dayton, Dec. 26, 1933, Airport Records,
Box 1, File 5.
Dayton's Municipal Airport 135 |
were scrambling to establish a situation in which CWA funds could be used to improve the airport. In December 1933, Fred L. Smith, Director of Aeronautics for the State of Ohio, provided the answer. He wrote Eichelberger that CWA labor could be used on the airport property if the city took out a five-year lease. He sent a copy of a lease form which the state of Ohio had prepared for use by other municipalities interested in improving local, privately owned airports.32 Apparently Smith's ideas met with approval as Dayton Airport, Inc., offered to lease its property to the city for $1.00 per year (as recommended in Fred Smith's letter) for five years. This also included an option for the city to buy the property at anytime during the lease for $100,000.33 After some further negotiation, which included some haggling over who paid the taxes, the city and Dayton Airport, Inc., entered into an agreement in March 1934. Under this agreement the city paid "the cost of all insurance they desire to carry on
32. Letter, Fred L. Smith, Director of Aeronautics, State of Ohio, to Mr. F. O. Eichelberger, City Manager, Dayton, Ohio, December 4, 1933, Airport Records, Box 1, File 5. 33. Letter, Frank Hill Smith, President, Dayton Airport, Inc., to Commission of the City of Dayton, Ohio, Dec. 26, 1933, Airport Records, Box 1, File 5. |
136 OHIO HISTORY
the premises, all legal taxes and
assessments, and the sum of $250.00 per
month." The final agreement also
included an option to buy the airport prop-
erty for $85,000.34
After all these frantic efforts, though,
the CWA funding fell through.
However, the city did receive $45,000 in
Federal Emergency Relief
Administration moneys to grade the
field. In June 1935, the Chamber of
Commerce resolved to ask for an
additional $15,000 in FERA moneys to
complete the project. The resolution
also hinted that the Chamber would
seek even more FERA money in the future
in order to build 3,000 ft. run-
ways.35 By early 1936,
however, it became clear that any big money for air-
port improvement would come from the
Works Projects Administration
(WPA), and to get that money, Dayton
would have to own the airport.
Reflecting a general pattern in Dayton's
history, when it became necessary
for the city to purchase the airport,
local business leaders interested in avia-
tion (and not willing to leave such an
important matter to the city's relatively
weak city hall) grabbed the bull by the
horns and in short order handed the
city its new airport.36 The
leader of this particular effort was James M. Cox,
owner of the Dayton Daily News and
the man who headed the Democratic
ticket in 1920 when Franklin Roosevelt
made his bid for the vice-presidency.
In February 1936, Cox, along with Edward
Deeds and E. G. Beichler of
Frigidaire (the latter two among the
original incorporators of the now
bankrupt Dayton Airport, Inc.), called a
Saturday luncheon meeting at the
Biltmore Hotel in Dayton. Many of the
most important businessmen in the
Miami Valley attended this meeting.37
At the meeting, Cox declared he was
concerned that Dayton, the home of
the Wright Brothers, did not have an
airport capable of handling the new,
larger planes carrying transcontinental
passengers and parcels. Upon inquiry
he had found that the government would
not appropriate money for the im-
provement of privately owned airports,
but money was available for public air
fields. Cox then worked his connections
in Washington, among whom in-
cluded President Roosevelt, and received
assurances that if Dayton bought the
Vandalia airport as its municipal
airport it could receive anywhere from
$400,000 to $700,000 from the WPA for
airport improvements. Believing
34. Letter, Frank Hill Smith, President,
Dayton Airport, Inc., to Commission of the City of
Dayton, Ohio, Jan. 2, 1934, Airport
Records, Box 1, File 6; Copy of lease between Dayton
Airport Inc., Frank Hill Smith and the
City of Dayton, March 29, 1934, Airport Records, Box 1,
File 7.
35. Resolution Adopted by Aeronautical Committee
of the Dayton Chamber of Commerce -
June 11, 1935, Airport Records, Box 1,
File 7.
36. Previous to this effort, civic
leaders such as John Patterson, Edward Deeds, and Charles
Kettering had provided the city with a
flood control organization (the Miami Conservancy
District), Wright and McCook Fields,
parks, boulevards, and recreation areas.
37. Article, "Funds of WPA to be
Utilized in Vandalia Project," Sunday, February 16, 1936,
Airport Clipping File, Dayton Main
Library.
Dayton's Municipal Airport 137
the city could not act quickly enough to
meet the funding deadline, Cox called
together the most powerful men in the
Miami Valley and asked them to sub-
scribe to a fund to purchase the
airport. The businessmen would then present
the airport to the city as a gift.38
After speeches from Cox and Deeds
recounting the history of aviation activ-
ities and the role of great business
leaders in bringing aviation and other busi-
ness activities to the Dayton area, the
group at the Biltmore pledged $42,600
toward the needed $65,000. (Somehow they
had negotiated the option price
down from $85,000.) It was clear from
the start that this was not strictly a
Dayton project. Businessmen from
Middletown, Piqua and Troy pledged the
first money for the fund. Other pledges
came from Springfield, Cincinnati
and Miamisburg.39 Either Cox,
Deeds and Beichler had enough clout to at-
tract "outside money" for
their Dayton Airport project or these businessmen,
accustomed to operating beyond their
local level, at least to a certain extent
saw the airport as a regional asset
which they could support. Most probably,
it was the former.
Significantly, during the process under
which the city first leased and then
bought the Vandalia property, the
records included only a couple of messages
from businessmen, both Dayton-based,
opposed to the idea. In 1935, local
architect Harry L. Schenck wrote the
Chamber of Commerce that he had been
an original stockholder in the Dayton
Airport company, having invested
$500. He asserted that he had
reservations about the project from the start be-
cause he "did not consider the
Vandalia location a satisfactory one due to its
distance from Dayton." And he still
felt that any municipal airport should be
much closer to the city. The following
year, in response to the fund-raising
drive, E. G. McCauley, of the McCauley
Aviation Corporation, wrote the
city manager and indicated that he felt
much the same way as Schenck. He
believed that the location in Vandalia
"was a big mistake at the beginning,
and for the future has no advantages to the city as a whole in being so
far re-
mote from the city." McCauley
further stated that he favored the use of the
East Dayton Airport.40
Theirs, though, were lone voices of
dissent. The fund-raising drive suc-
ceeded in very short order, and on April
29, 1936, the group presented the city
with its new municipal airport. Beyond
the narrative of events, the question
remains as to why Dayton's municipal
airport ended up in Vandalia. Given
38. Ibid.; Attachment to Letter, Miriam
Rosenthal to Mayor Louis Lohrey, Dayton Ohio, July
22, 1952, Cox Papers, Box 6, File 9.
39. Article, "Funds of WPA,"
February 16, 1936, Airport Clipping File, Dayton Main
Library; Telegram, James M. Cox to Mr.
Charles J Bevan, February 17, 1936, Cox Papers, Box
6, File 9.
40. Letter, E. G. McCauley, McCauley
Aviation Corporation, to Fred 0. Eichelberger, City
Manager, Dayton, Ohio, Feb. 29, 1936,
Airport Records, Box 1, File 8.
138 OHIO HISTORY
the distance of the airport from the
city, one might ask whether or not it fit
into any regional planning activities in
Dayton and the Miami Valley.
The Airport, Annexation and City
Planning:
Lacking a Regional Vision
Examination of other civic initiatives
during the 1920s and early 1930s, in-
cluding annexation and city planning,
indicates civic leaders in Dayton and its
surrounding area did not envision any
expansion of the city's power or pres-
ence in the Miami Valley or have any
interest in coordinating projects and
improvements on a regional basis. The
Dayton Airport project was, in fact,
an isolated case of the area's
leadership acting on a what might be considered
regional basis, in that contributors to
the fund to purchase the airport for
Dayton came from cities within the Miami
Valley which would not necessar-
ily directly benefit from the project.
More typically, Dayton and Dayton area
business leaders showed very little
interest in either strengthening Dayton's
position within the region or in
implementing any forms of regional plan-
ning. When one looks at concurrent
efforts to expand the city by annexation
or to strengthen or expand planning
powers, the local civic leadership demon-
strated a remarkably consistent lack of
support or even interest.
Throughout the 1920s and into the very
early 1930s Dayton saw several
calls for the city to annex adjacent
areas, particularly the village of Oakwood,
home of many of the area's most
prominent citizens, located just south of
Dayton on land developed largely by John
Patterson, founder of NCR.
Patterson built his home in the Oakwood
hills and insisted that his executives
live in Oakwood. In 1907, Patterson
threatened to move NCR, the city's
largest employer, out of the city unless
Dayton met several demands.
Included was his insistence that Dayton
not annex the Oakwood area and, fur-
ther, allow it to incorporate as a
village. The city agreed.41 After Patterson's
death in 1922, however, several local
leaders came forward to suggest the an-
nexation of Oakwood.
One of the first vigorous campaigns to
convince Oakwood's citizens to ac-
cept annexation came in 1926. In
February, the city manager convened a
meeting of many of the most prominent
citizens of Oakwood and the City
Commission. Included among the attendees
was Frederick B. Patterson of
NCR (who two years later would be one of
the founding members of Dayton
Airport, Inc.). At that meeting,
Eichelberger delivered a speech in which he
strongly encouraged the leaders of
Oakwood to see the value in becoming part
41. Charlotte Reeve Conover, Builders
in New Fields (New York, 1939), 236, 245, 301-14;
Judith Sealander, Grand Plans:
Business Progressivism and Social Change in Ohio's Miami
Valley (Lexington, Kentucky, 1988), 91; Bruce W. Ronald and
Virginia Ronald, Oakwood:
The Far Hills (Dayton, Ohio, 1983), 54.
Dayton's Municipal Airport
139
of Dayton. He argued that by remaining
independent, they were retarding the
growth of Dayton. By accepting
annexation, they would be an example for
the people in other populated districts
who, at that time, were also opposing
annexation. He even laid out a scheme by
which the village of Oakwood
could maintain a separate school
district42. Eichelberger concluded by saying:
Unless all persons who work in Dayton
and really have the welfare of Dayton at
heart will, by becoming part of Dayton
politically, make it possible for them to
take part in the administration of
Dayton's public affairs so the "livable" facilities
may be provided, Dayton will suffer.43
The city manager's pleas fell on deaf or
hostile ears.
The effort did not stop, though. A 1928
letter to the city manager indicated
a Chamber of Commerce concern for
Dayton's showing in the upcoming
1930 census.44 As the time for that all-important head
count grew nearer,
Dayton's assistant City Attorney, Mason
Douglas, launched an aggressive
campaign to convince the leaders of
Oakwood to accept annexation. In April
1930, Douglas wrote the city manager and
requested that he convene another
meeting of Dayton city officials and Oakwood's leadership.
When
Eichelberger failed to respond, Douglas
wrote again, suggesting that the effort
had the support of the Chamber of
Commerce. Apparently, Eichelberger still
failed to respond. The next time Douglas
wrote, he invited the city manager
to a meeting at the Chamber of Commerce
office, scheduled for late May,
where that organization would take up
the topic in a highly confidential meet-
ing. With the Chamber's backing, Douglas
convinced the city manager and
the commission to invite prominent
Oakwood citizens to a confidential meet-
ing on June 20, 1930.45
42. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger)
to Mr. Oscar Kressler, et al (the files contained
copies of a form letter Eichelberger
sent to 29 individuals; Kressler's letter is the first in the
series), February 9, 1926, City Manager
Records, 1-A-2 1926; List, Attendees at Meeting, no
date, City Manager Records, File l-A-2
1926; Speech, "Dayton's Welfare," no date, City
Manager Records, File l-A-2 1926;
Proposal, "How the Village of Oakwood May Maintain its
Separate School System Even if it is
Annexed to Dayton," no date, City Manager Records, File
l-A-2 1926.
43. Speech, " Dayton's
Welfare," no date, City Manager Records, File l-A-2 1926.
44. Letter, Wayne Ley, Managing
Director, Dayton Chamber of Commerce, to C. D.
Putnam, President, Dayton Plan Board,
February 1, 1928, City Manager Records, File l-A-2
1928.
45. Letter, Asst. City Attorney (Mason
Douglas) to City Manager (Eichelberger), April 14,
1930, City Manager Records, File 1-A-2
1930; Letter, Asst. City Attorney (Douglas) to City
Manager (Eichelberger), April 22, 1930,
City Manager Records, File l-A-2 1930; Letter, Asst.
City Attorney (Douglas) to City Manager
(Eichelberger), May 22, 1930, City Manager
Records, File l-A-2 1930; Letter, City
Manager (Eichelberger) to F. H. Rike, et al (again, this
letter began a series of copies of form
letters sent to at least nine Oakwood leaders, including
F.B. Patterson; a list for the meeting
included 23 names), June 14, 1930, City Manager Records,
File l-A-2 1930.
140 OHIO HISTORY |
|
Extensive lists were drawn up to ensure that all interested parties would be present and invitations sent out. Dozens of local leaders from Dayton and Oakwood attended the June meeting. There Mason Douglas offered an exten- sive statement on the benefits of annexation. He concluded with the follow- ing:
Annexation had effected a united community except for Oakwood. Oakwood can- not indefinitely postpone its community obligation and refuse to become a part of the City of Dayton. It stands before a new community with over 35,000 new citi- zens, and it must waken to the fact that moral responsibility alone points clearly to consolidation. We wish the people of the community and Oakwood to under- stand that we now propose to turn to the problems of consolidating Oakwood and Dayton with absolute confidence that it is inevitable and that intelligent sound thinking will unavoidably lead the citizens of Oakwood to one consideration, that is, that Oakwood cannot exist without Dayton and that there is no justifiable divi- sion existing between the people of Oakwood and the people of Dayton. We see one government, one City, and one purpose in this community and Oakwood is inseparably a part of the community.46
Some of the same people who could think enough in regional terms to site Dayton's airport in Vandalia, including Frederick B. Patterson and Frederick Rike, did not think regionally when it came to their residential enclave. Had the major Oakwood leaders supported annexation, it probably would have
46. Statement by Mason Douglas, no date, City Manager Records, File 1-A-2 1930. |
Dayton's Municipal Airport
141
happened. Clearly, however, they did
not. Following that meeting, twice
Dayton's city manager attempted to set
up a meeting with Oakwood's mayor
and council and twice he was rebuffed.47 The idea of annexing Oakwood faded
from view.
It was much the same story when it came
to city planning. Dayton entered
the 1920s with the reputation of being
one of the nation's most progressive
cities. It had gained that reputation
after becoming the largest US city to
adopt the commission-manager form of
government in 1913. By the early
1920s, however, any progressive impulse
had faded. A late 1930s study of
Dayton's government indicated that after
World War I a sense of "indifferent
complacency" had set in. The
government was competent enough, but took
few initiatives. And Dayton's civic
leaders, most of whom had moved out-
side of the city's limits to Oakwood and
beyond, seemed to have little interest
in local government affairs.48 City
planning efforts received little or no sup-
port from Dayton's most prominent
leaders.
In 1921, Eichelberger replied to a
letter from the Knoxville Board of
Commerce asking for information about
Dayton's city planning efforts. He
wrote:
Very little has been done here in Dayton
along city planning lines. Back in 1918
the City Planning Board was appointed
with a prominent local architect acting as
Secretary. However, owing to lack of
funds, very little was done by this Board.
They did, I believe, draw up some sort of comprehensive
City plan but that is as far
as it went. At the present time this
Board is not functioning so that we really have
nothing of value to show in this work.49
Eichelberger sent out other, similar
letters in 1922 and 1923. Generally they
informed the inquirer that Dayton had no
city planning board and no funds
with which to conduct city planning
activities.
47. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger)
to Lowell P. Rieger, Mayor, Oakwood, August 11,
1930, City Manager Records, File 1-A-2
1930; Letter, Lowell P. Rieger, Mayor of Oakwood, to
F. O. Eichelberger, City Manager,
Dayton, Ohio, August 19, 1930, City Manager Records, File
l-A-2 1930; Typewritten Statement,
untitled, August 22, 1930, City Manager Records, 1-A-2
1930.
48. Landrum R. Bolling, "City
Manager Government in Dayton," in Mosher, et al, City
Manager Government in Seven Cities (Chicago, 1940), 296, 322.
49. Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger)
to Mr. J. T. Badgley, Knoxville Board of
Commerce, November 8, 1921, City Manager
Records, File 8-F 1921.
50. See Letter, City Manager
(Eichelberger) to Mr. W. H. Reid, City Manager, Bay City,
Michigan, February 4, 1922, City Manager
Records, File 8-F 1922; Letter, City Manager
(Eichelberger) to Mr. Campbell Scott,
President, Technical Advisory Corporation, February 27,
1922, City Manager Records, File 8-F
1922; Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger) to Mr. C. E.
Rightor, Detroit Bureau of Governmental
Research, January 29, 1923, City Manager Records,
8-F 1923; Letter, City Manager
(Eichelberger) to Mr. William W. Trench, Acting Secretary,
City Planning Commission, Schenectady,
New York, July 23, 1923, City Manager Records, File
8-F 1923; Letter, City Manager
(Eichelberger) to Miss Anne Robertson, Secretary, City
Planning and Zoning Commission, New
Orleans, Louisiana, September 26, 1923, City Manager
142 OHIO HISTORY
The City Commission did appoint a new
City Plan Board in 1924. The
following year the board contracted with
the Technical Advisory Corporation
of New York to develop a zoning
ordinance for the city, which the city
adopted on May 9, 1926. This proved one
of its few accomplishments. In
late 1926, it also accepted four
chapters of a comprehensive city plan from the
Technical Advisory Corporation, but the
records do not indicate that the pro-
posed plan prompted much action. Then in
1928, as a small group of civic
leaders were establishing a municipal
airport far beyond the city boundaries,
the City Plan Board did issue a call for
regional planning. But that was as far
as it ever went.51 Apparently
when it came to annexation or city planning,
Dayton's business leadership showed
scant support and virtually no interest.
Finally, even proponents of making
airports part of a regional planning
scheme would not necessarily have
supported the placement of Dayton's air-
port so far from the center of the city.
In the late 1920s, Henry Hubbard,
Miller McClintock and Frank B. Williams
from the Harvard University
School of City Planning, made a study of
the nation's airports. In it they de-
clared that "the location of the
airport should be considered in relation to a
consistent city and regional plan."
While speaking of the placement of the
airport, they concluded that the
"airport should be as near the center of the
town as possible. A greater
transportation time than fifteen minutes from the
center of the city to the airport would
in all probability be a serious detri-
ment."52 Those opposed to the Vandalia Airport indicated that it took
longer
than fifteen minutes to reach the
airport and that the location was too remote.
Echoing the Hubbard study, they, too,
believed a municipal airport should be
less than fifteen minutes travel time
from the center of town.53
Thus, the siting of Dayton's airport did
not reflect a case of regional plan-
ning. Although its location suggested it
served Dayton's region, more so
perhaps than the city, and in 1936 it
drew its financial supporters from across
the Miami Valley, the airport stood as a
false beacon of regional planning be-
cause no real concern for using the
airport to develop Dayton and its region
underlay its establishment. So, if what
became Dayton's municipal airport
Records, File 8-F 1923.
51. Letter, Clerk of the Commission to
City Plan Board, April 10, 1924, City Manager
Records, 8-F 1924; Letter, Clerk of the
Commission to City Manager (Eichelberger), January
28, 1925, City Manager Records, File 8-F
1925; Letter, City Manager (Eichelberger) to City
Commission, August 26, 1925, City
Manager Records, File 8-F 1925; Report, "Four Chapters of
Comprehensive City Plan Submitted by
Technical Advisory Corporation," December 28, 1926,
City Manager Records, File 8-F 1926;
Report, "Projects Which Need the Attention of the City
Plan Board During the Coming Year,"
no date, City Manager Records, File 10-B 1928.
52. Henry V. Hubbard, et al, Airports:
Their Location, Administration and Legal Basis
(Cambridge, Mass., 1930), 20.
53. Letter, E. G. McCauley, McCauley
Aviation Corporation, to City Manager Fred C.
Eichelberger, February 29, 1936, Dayton
Airport Records, Box 1, File 8.
Dayton's Municipal Airport 143
did not reflect a case of regional
planning, why did Dayton end up with a mu-
nicipal airport eleven miles outside of
the city?
Personalities and Technology:
Locating Dayton's Airport
As noted in the introduction, the
Vandalia airport site won the contest for
municipal ownership because it had the
most powerful backers and because its
proponents understood the aircraft
technology of the late 1920s, when the air-
port was first established. Indeed, the
airport's planners seemed more con-
cerned with meeting the needs of the
airlines and their pilots than of the city
of Dayton.
The Vandalia airport site backers
included some of the most powerful busi-
ness leaders in the Dayton area. These
men, especially Edward Deeds and
Frederick Patterson, were accustomed to
getting what they wanted from the
city. It was doubtful that any other
combination of businessmen within the
city could have matched the founding
members of Dayton Airport, Inc., in
power or prestige. And it was unlikely
that the city would refuse them once
they decided to establish a municipal
airport. In fact, in the end, the city had
little choice. The owners of the airport
first decided where it would be located
and then they and their powerful
associates, once the private venture had
clearly failed, decided that their
airport near Vandalia would be purchased and
presented to the city as its municipal
airport.
Also an important factor, aircraft
navigation equipment was still very much
in the developmental stage in the late
1920s. During the 1920s aircraft tech-
nology had advanced rapidly, but most
flying was still done under visual
flight conditions. In other words the
pilot needed to see the ground (and the
horizon) to keep the plane level, and
most navigation depended on sighting
visual landmarks. Instrumentation was
improving, but at the time of the ini-
tial establishment
of the Dayton Airport in 1928, full instrument flying was
still very much in the experimental
stage. Powerful beacons did allow for
night flying, but the pilot still had to
see the beacon. Flying was still a fair-
weather, visual enterprise in 1928.
Technology would improve, but radio
navigation aids were still several years
in the future.54
In 1921 the US Post Office printed a set
of directions for pilots flying the
new transcontinental airway. Dayton was
not on that airway, but a part of
the directions followed by pilots
between Cleveland, Ohio, and Bellefonte,
Pennsylvania, provides a glimpse into
the conditions under which pilots flew
54. General James H. "Jimmy"
Doolittle with Carroll V. Glines, I Could Never Be So Lucky
Again (New York, 1991), 129-53; Nick A. Komons, Bonfires
to Beacons: Federal Civil
Aviation Policy Under the Air
Commerce Act, 1926-1938 (Washington,
D.C., 1989), 125-47.
144 OHIO HISTORY |
|
their aircraft during the 1920s.55 Clearly landmarks, such as railroads, played an important role in moving the mail by air. The Vandalia location served the airlines' need for visual landmarks. As noted in a local newspaper article, the airport site was near the intersection of "two of the most famous highways in America-the National Road leading east and west and the Dixie Highway leading north and south."56 Aircraft fly- ing between Columbus and Indianapolis, for example, could follow the National Road and those flying between Cincinnati and northern Ohio could follow the Dixie Highway. In either case they would not have to divert from a relatively straight course in order to land at the Dayton Airport. Frank Hill Smith reiterated the value of this location in a 1933 letter to the City Commission. That location, in part, gave the Dayton Airport "a high rating for accessibility thruout [sic] the year."57 Two years before the drive to purchase the airport for the city, the continued dangers of night and weather flying were dramatically illustrated. In 1934, in response to a scandal within the Post Office over the methods by which air-
55. William M. Leary, Pilots' Directions: The Transcontinental Airway and its History (Iowa City, 1990), 53. 56. Article, "Dayton Boasts of Sixth Air Station," no date, Airport Clipping File, Dayton Main Library. 57. Letter, Frank Hill Smith, President, Dayton Airport Inc., to City Commission of Dayton, Ohio, February 21, 1933, Dayton Airport Records, Box 1, File 5. |
Dayton's Municipal Airport 145
mail contracts were awarded, President
Franklin Roosevelt canceled all the ex-
isting airmail contracts and turned over
responsibility for flying the mail to
the Army Air Corps in mid-February 1934.
Unlike the airlines, which flew
some of the most advanced equipment
available and relied on extensive train-
ing, the Air Corps took on the job in
the dead of winter flying badly out-of-
date 1920s vintage aircraft. The death
toll mounted rapidly. By mid-March,
the president ordered the Army to fly
only during the day. Crashes continued,
however, and shortly thereafter the
Roosevelt administration made arrange-
ments to return the airmail contracts to
private carriers.58 Thus, even as late
as the mid-1930s, night and weather
flying by instrument still, in many
ways, represented the cutting edge of
technology.
Conclusion
Dayton's business leaders provided the
city with an airport which by its lo-
cation served primarily the needs of the
airlines. The airport's location did
not reflect a regional planning
initiative, nor did it tend to spark interest in
any regional planning which might have
worked to draw the people of the
Miami Valley closer together.
Dayton's airport was located at
crossroads-a crossroads of technology and
a crossroads of two major highways. The
airport, now known as Dayton-Cox
International, still serves as the
municipal airport, but even today, while not a
failure, it has still not lived up to
any expectations, explicit or implied, of
greatly furthering the development of
Dayton and its region. In some ways it
is still a false beacon of the
possibilities of regional planning.
58. Smith, Airways, 249-58.
JANET R. DALY BEDNAREK
False Beacon: Regional Planning and the
Location of Dayton's Municipal Airport
Introduction
At first glance, one might logically
conclude that the location of Dayton's
municipal airport represented a case of
deliberate regional planning.
Approximately eleven miles north of the
city's central business district, its
placement near the city of Vandalia,
Ohio, suggests that those who chose that
location had an image or vision of the
city of Dayton which extended beyond
the city's limits. Closer examination,
however, reveals that neither a vision
of a Greater Dayton nor regional
planning had much to do with the location
of Dayton's airport. Rather, it had more
to do with, first, who owned the
property, and second, the technology of
aviation in 1928.
The people involved in building Dayton's
municipal airport included some
of the most powerful and influential
businessmen in the city. Several of
these men, including Edward Deeds, had
close ties to the infant airline indus-
try.1 Those men had the necessary local
clout to push through their plans for
a municipal airport, even in the face of
competition from other plans. When
the initial private venture failed,
those same business leaders mounted a drive
to purchase the airport from its
creditors and simply presented it to the city.
Further, they understood the new airline
industry, especially its technological
limitations.
Efforts to establish a municipal airport
began in earnest in 1926. One
might wonder why the home of the Wright
brothers took so long to establish
its own airport. Part of the reason lay
in the fact that up to 1926, the avia-
tion industry was an extremely risky
business. It remained risky after 1926,
but by that time the national government
had taken two actions which less-
ened the risk somewhat and offered
considerable incentives. On May 20,
1926, Congress passed the Air Commerce
Act. That act, pushed by Secretary
of Commerce Herbert Hoover, gave the
Department of Commerce powers to
Janet R. Daly Bednarek is Assistant
Professor of History at the University of Dayton.
1. Deeds' son, Charles, was a major
stockholder in and treasurer of Pratt & Whitney, an
aviation engine manufacturer. In 1928,
Pratt & Whitney became part of the United Aircraft &
Transportation Company which also
controlled United Airlines. See Henry Ladd Smith,
Airways: The History of Commercial
Aviation in the United States (Washington,
D.C., 1991),
124, 233-35.