Among Other Things - Early local aviation highlights

With the annual Polson Fly-in set for this Saturday, Sept. 7, by the local Experimental Aircraft Assn. chapter at the Polson airport, I thought you might like to read some old aviation headlines and items from Flathead Courier files.

Pilot Terah T. Maroney, who made the first flight from water in Flathead Lake in 1913, was in the news again on Jan. 7, 1916, returned to Montana from the coast to attend a meeting of stockholders of Montana Aeroplane and Exhibition Co. at Anaconda. Several Butte men backed his flying efforts. T.T. Poore was president and Maroney general manager of the company. Stock for the company was not for sale but had returned good dividends for the shareholders. Article said since company’s formation, dividends equaling 65 percent had been declared. Assets increased over 100 percent. Surplus amounting to a 60 percent dividend was invested in a new plane.

Maroney said he had flown to all parts of the country – from New York to San Francisco, Calgary to New Orleans, and that he had never had an unsuccessful flight, and always made good on his contracts. Claimed his had never broken a wire on any flight. (But a 1913 story told of his being bruised and the plane damaged in a flight  near Kellogg, Idaho, but both were back in action a week later in Butte). He planned to get a new plane, hire a young aviator he had trained and a young lady who would make parachute jumps “from as high as the eye could see,” and as she floats to the ground a second plane will do stunts, loops and spirals around her.

On March 23, 1916, the Courier reported, “Foresters of Montana and Idaho favor flying machines for scouting for fires.” That idea sounded good. On Nov. 13, 1919, it was reported that 18 army airmen would patrol forests in 1920. On Dec. 4, officials announced that 18 planes would be assigned to the Forest Service in 1920, six to be based in Helena.

March 23, 1920, officials said that Kelley Field army pursuit and bomb groups would man airplanes during the forest fire season -- two squadrons at Missoula; two at Camp Lewis, one at Mather Field, Calif.

A couple ideas didn’t take hold at the time. The Nov 27, 1919, Courier reported that the forest service was studying the possibility of suppressing forest fires with gas bombs and considering using dirigibles to lower fire fighters into remote areas via rope ladders at slow speed.

And on July 1, 1920, a story told of aviator Thompson from Kalispell coming to Polson   for a couple of days of air shows and giving rides. Only passenger he took was Mayor Jimmie Harbert. But the landing area was so rough and dangerous that he decided not to carry any more passengers. He cut his visit short and returned to Kalispell.  While disappointed by the cancellation, the incident impressed upon business people the need for a decent airfield a Polson.

That took a few years but in 1928, Polson voters approved by a four-vote margin an authorization of up to $1,000 in bonds to buy an “aviation field.” In 1930 a group of Polson business people chipped in $25 each to make the down payment for 40 acres owned by Nate Hart. The field was officially dedicated on July 4, 1930.