Ohio History Journal

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

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.

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.

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.

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.