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Lt. Ferris
First Airplanes Arrive in Lewis County
by Vic Kucera and Karen L. Johnson
By June 1919, the local Chehalis Citizen's Club had begun to lobby for a municipal landing field. On
June 20 of that year, the Lewis County Advocate wrote "With the grace of a vulture and the speed of a hawk, a great Curtiss
airplane circled and circled about thte State Training School last Monday morning and finally settled down in a broad field, a harbinger
of what was to come in the next few years in the way of air service. The airplane, in (the) charge of Lieutenant Ferris, left Portland 65
minutes before landing here, making a trip of close to 100 miles in that short time. They are out on a trip for the post office department,
'spying' out the land and gathering all necessary information as to routes, air conditions, landing places and other data preparatory to an
air mail service....The machine used was a Curtiss H type, with 150 HP Hispano-Suizo egine, capable of great speed and one that was
used for training purposes during the war."
LEWIS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY & MUSEUM
599 N.W. Front Way, Chelais, Washington
Volume 26 - No. 4
December 2004 |
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P.F. Barnes