BENOIST BUILT BY KORN BROTHERS, 1911
	Benoist airplane, built by Korn brothers, is now in the Smithsonian..

This comes from an article in CAMERICA, 1953, entitled OHIO'S OLDEST AIRPORT, by Bernard J. Losh.. Hard by the little farming community of Montra, near Jackson Center, O., is what is claimed to be the oldest airport in Ohio. It is also probably the cleanest.      The 50th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first flight will be on Dec. 17, 1953.      In 1908, five years after the first Wright flight, Milton and Edward Korn let go their grip on the plow handles, so to speak, and let themselves be bitten good by the airplane bug. Not that the brothers Korn quit farming. There was a certain amount of it to do and they did it. But they found time, too, for their developing concern with the flying machine. They also found ways and means to cut down the size of the family farm and establish the first airport in Ohio. In one stage of activity or another it has been in continuous operation since that time.      That same year Milt and Ed Korn started building flying machines. Altogether they put four of them together. The first two never got off the ground. The third one, which was powered with a marine motor, made successful flights in 1911. It took off and landed at the Korn airport.      The fourth plane, called a Benoist, was put together in 1911-1912, out of parts from a number of different airplanes. It was used, in 1912, to carry the first air mail in the state of Illinois and was only recently given to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington for permanent display.      In 1913, in the only crash at the Korn airport, Milton Korn was killed and his brother Ed was injured.      While all this was going on, a younger brother, Arlington Korn, was continually exposed to aviation. By the time he was 12 years old he knew his way around the airways, not as a pilot but he was precociously wise and knowing as a passenger.      From 1913 until 1946 activities at the Korn airport sort of simmered down, at least as far as its public operations and public services went but Arlington Korn continued to fly, using the field as his base of operations.   EDDIE KORN AND HIS AEROPLANE

 

This photo was in Walter's Collection It was stamped on the back: "PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.

 

Edward A. Korn, an Early Bird, is listed in the Early Birds of Aviation CHIRP as having died in 1980.   Gallery 1