Airplane hangers that helped mold history honored
CAHOKIA, Ill. -- Two hangars that helped establish the airline industry in the St. Louis area -- and across the country -- have been named to the National Register of Historic Places.
The brick-faced buildings, with sliding, pocket-style doors made up of hundreds of panes of glass, date from 1928. That's when pioneering aircraft company Curtiss-Wright came to Cahokia with plans to build what would be the primary airport for the St. Louis area.
St. Louis Downtown Airport Assistant Administrator Wendi Sellers said the list of legendary aviation figures who either helped build the airport or visited the hangars in their early days is as long as the history of flight.
"Amelia Earhart walked through the doors here," Sellers said. "Jimmy Doolittle has been here. The history is incredible."
Curtiss-Wright and a group of local investors including St. Louis financier Mark Steinberg, Transcontinental Air Transport Service -- which later became Trans World Airlines -- and the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. financed the airfield. They chose the location on the advice of Charles Lindbergh who, fresh from his trans-Atlantic solo flight, was hired to scout out locations for airports around the country.
What was originally known as Curtiss-Steinberg Field never took off as the major hub airport that was planned. But hangars 1 and 2 had another date with history. They housed a military flight training school at the air field that trained about 15 percent of the American military pilots who flew in World War II.
By getting the historic designation, Sellers said it will make it easier for the airport to get a Saving America's Treasures grant to help raise the $800,000 to $900,000 it will take to restore the hangars to what they looked like in the days of the barnstormers.
The hangars are still in use today. Hangar 1 houses an aircraft maintenance business, while hangar 2 is home to the Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum.
Originally there were four hangars. One burned in the 1950s and another in the 1960s. But the two remaining ones still have the Curtiss-Wright name in script cast into concrete above the doors along with the company logo of a high-winged plane.
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor, founded by aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, was the leading manufacturer of aircraft around the globe at the time of World War I. Shortly after the War to End Wars was over, the company merged with Wright Aeronautical, whose roots can be traced Orville and Wilbur Wright.
When the airfield was completed in 1929, it had three 1,650-foot runways, the four hangars and a snack bar to serve the crowds that gathered to watch airplanes take off and land. In those days, most airports were little more than grassy fields.
One of the most spectacular events to occur during the days of the barnstormers was in 1931. A large group of spectators gathered to watch Doolittle, a record-setting pilot, fly a plane built by students at Parks College next to the airfield.
According to newspaper accounts from the time, Doolittle was flying about 235 mph when he pulled back hard on the stick and parts of the wings tore from the plane. It rolled over, tossing him out. The pilot, who eventually became a World War II hero, managed to pull the rip cord on his parachute as the plane plummeted into the ground. When he landed -- after being dragged along the ground by the chute for a short distance as onlookers gasped -- Doolittle jumped to his feet and waved to the relieved crowd.