Missoula has a long and fascinating aviation history. Since the early 1900s, there have been airplanes flying to and from the Garden City. Missoula's original airports were located on the south side of the city. In 1938, the Missoula County Airport Board purchased 1300 acres of land west of Missoula adjacent to Highway 10 West as the site for a new airport, which officially opened in 1941.
 
Today, Missoula International Airport has grown into an expansive complex. Hundreds of aircraft take off and land on our runways every day. Some of those aircraft are being piloted by Missoula's newest aviators who will continue to write new chapters in our historical archives.

We invite you to take some time to learn about how aviation began here in Missoula.

1911 June 26, exhibition pilot Eugene Ely departs from the ballpark at Fort Missoula for a scheduled performance in a Curtiss bi-plane. 3000 people come from miles away to witness the event. On one of the three flights, Ely takes his mechanic, William Hoff, for a ride. Hoff becomes the first "passenger" to fly around the valley. The combined weight of the two men in the flying machine also establishes a record for Missoula's altitude of 3200 feet above sea level. Ely is killed later the same year while performing a similar exhibition in Georgia.

1912 McClellan hires racecar driver Walter Beck to fly his newly rebuilt plane for an exhibition flight around Missoula. On the first attempt, a gust of wind pushes the plane down, causing it to crash into telephone wires. Three weeks later, after being repaired, the plane once again crashes during an attempted exhibition flight due to a fire near the engine; McClellan travels to Washington to teach students how to fly in Spokane.

1913 Beck tries again, this time remaining airborne for twelve minutes. Three days later, Beck stuns an audience as he flies from Bonner, through the Hellgate Canyon, to a field on the south side of town. The canyon is lined with people who cheer as he flies overhead. The eight mile trip takes eight minutes, barely outrunning the trolley cars on the streets below; McClellan moves his operation to a field near Parkwater in the Spokane Valley. The field would be dedicated as a new municipal airport in 1919, and was re-named Felt’s Field in 1927, after John Buell Felts, a Spokane native and World War One pilot who died when the plane he was flying suffered an engine failure and crashed near the airport.

1917 At the age of 24, Bob Johnson enlists in the army and is sent to Camp Lewis, Washington. Johnson is discharged less than a year later. Johnson goes into business for himself, opening an automotive service station.

1922 Missoula residents Frank Wiley, Arthur Stephenson, Lon Brennan, and Neil Keim purchase a surplus K6 Standard for $2000. They store the plane under the grandstands at the Missoula County Fairgrounds.

1923 Missoula’s first landing strip is laid out in May. The field is located near the base of Mount Sentinel, roughly between what is now the University of Montana and South Avenue; Brennan, Wiley, and Stephenson perform an “air show” for spectators at the Western Montana Fair; Bob Johnson is first introduced to airplanes and flying when he repairs the damaged landing gear of the K6 Standard. Johnson later takes flying lessons from Lon Brennan. During one flight lesson, Brennan and Johnson cut two telephone wires in half after departing the field. Brennan shrugs his shoulders and smiles as the Standard climbs into the august morning sky; after an evening on the town, inebriated pilots Keim and Brennan spend 20 minutes buzzing a West Broadway residence, and then proceeded to fly the full length of Higgins Avenue 50 feet above ground level. Upon landing, the two are greeted by an irate crowd; the K6 Standard is destroyed after Brennan is forced to make a crash landing in a field near Fort Missoula. A similar wrecked K6 is located in Chinook, Montana. Parts are salvaged from each wreck to build a new, flyable airplane.

1924 The K6 Standard that was built from two salvaged wrecks crashes into a chicken coop in Hamilton, Montana. Pilot Lon Brennan is un-injured.

1926 Bob Johnson purchases a Swallow bi-plane for $2500 and continues his flying lessons with instructor Nick Mamer, believed to be the first pilot to ever fly over Glacier National Park. Johnson returns to Missoula in 1927 with the Swallow bi-plane, which was destroyed two years later when the building it was stored in burned to the ground. Bob Johnson decides to start Johnson Flying Service to teach others how to fly.

1927 Bob Johnson, in an interview with a University of Montana journalism student, says he believes airplanes will eventually make regular stops in Missoula. Decades later, that same journalism student, who thought Johnson was crazy for making such an incredible statement, would eventually fly out of Missoula International Airport aboard a large passenger airliner; a group of men meet at the Palace Hotel to discuss Missoula's future in aviation. Missoula, it was felt, needed an airport to succeed. City businessman Harry O. Bell was elected president of the Missoula chapter of the National Aeronautic Association. Their first act was to secure an airmail route to Butte and Salt Lake City; Walter Beck secures a 60-day option on eighty acres of land just east of the Missoula County Fairgrounds. The County officially purchases the 80 acres of land, as well as an adjacent strip to construct an east-west runway. Total cost was $5000. A northwest-southeast runway was later built.

The airport, which would eventually be named Hale Field, was located in the southeast corner of Missoula, which is the present day home of Sentinel High School, Playfair Park, and Splash Montana. When the airport was constructed, it was in a relatively unpopulated area of the town. Eventually, homes and neighborhoods crept closer to Hale Field, creating tension between homeowners and the airport as pilots were often forced to fly extremely low over the homes on final approach to the runways.

1928 The installation of a 550 gallon fuel tank makes the Garden City Airport the most modern airport in Montana; Johnson Flying Service purchases a factory new Travelair. Named "Mae Gerard", thousands rush out of their homes when they hear the green and orange ship fly over the city. A round trip flight to Helena would cost a passenger $20. The plane is later destroyed by fire; Bob Johnson is one of only six licensed pilots in the state of Montana.

1929 Dick Johnson joins his brother Bob at Johnson Flying Service, first as a mechanic, then as a pilot; July 21, H.O. Bell announces that Mamer Flying Service plans to inaugurate regular airline service on a route that includes Minneapolis, Butte, Missoula, and Spokane. (The routes that Mamer and his pilots flew in twin engine Lockheed’s are similar to the routes Delta Air Lines flies present day using Airbus A320’s); through additional financing secured by Harry Bell and state Senator John L. Campbell, Missoula’s Garden City Airport now covers 225 acres; Missoula listed as a stop along on a route for the National Air Races. On the route from New York to Spokane, Bob Johnson finishes tenth out of 27 total competitors in his division: Missoula County Commissioners select the first airport board. Dick Hale is appointed to a one year term, and is charged with improving and maintaining the new airport.

1930 Bob Johnson log’s 200,000 miles and over 2,000 hours in the sky since he began flying six years earlier; Dick Hale and his passenger escape serious injury when the aircraft he was flying crashes onto Vine Street in Missoula’s lower Rattlesnake residential area. The accident barely misses hitting the home owned by Hale’s parents.

1931 Bob Johnson outbids the competition and gains a Forest Service contract to fly freight into the back country of western Montana and Idaho. He soon lands a mail contract out of Boise, Idaho.

1932 Johnson is flying food, supplies and mail to snowbound miners and ranchers in a plane equipped with skis instead of wheels.

1933 Johnson’s Wasp Ford Tri-Motor arrives in Missoula. With a 78-foot wingspan and 52 feet in length, it was the largest airplane to ever land in the city at the time.

1934 Northwest Airways inaugurates regular mail and passenger service to Missoula at the Garden City Airport.

1935 The Garden City Airport is officially named Hale Field, after county surveyor and civil engineer Dick Hale, who spent many hours at the airport as an aviation enthusiast.

1938 Dick Johnson suffers a concussion, a skull fracture, cuts and bruises after crash-landing a Johnson Tri-Motor at the Big Prairie landing strip northeast of Missoula; Nick Mamer, the pilot who taught Bob Johnson how to fly, is killed in an accident near Bozeman, Montana; President Roosevelt authorizes W.P.A. funds for the construction of Missoula’s third airport. The Missoula County Airport Board purchases 1300 acres of land seven miles west of Missoula adjacent to Highway 10 West as the site for a new airport. Since the Forest Service needed access to an airport, and Missoula County needed heavy equipment to build the new airport, a deal was struck between the two parties. The airport board gave the Forest Service a perpetual easement at the airport site, while the Forest Service granted the use of their equipment for construction. The agreement eventually led to Missoula becoming a major center for aerial firefighting and research.  The new airport would feature four runways each a mile or more in length, capable of accommodating any airplane in service at the time. Total estimated cost, including the land, for the new Missoula County Airport: $1.5-$2 million.

1939 The Forest Service experiments to determine how firefighters could be trained to safely parachute into mountainous terrain to extinguish fires; while dropping cargo to Forest Service workers in the Roaring Lion Canyon, Dick Johnson survives a second horrific crash after a strong downdraft pushes his plane down. Struggling to maintain control, the wing of his Travelair catches a tree. The impact throws his head against the side of the aircraft, knocking him unconscious. The aircraft spirals forward at over 100 miles per hour until striking a rock face, crushing the nose into the cockpit. The spinning motion twists the front part of the aircraft halfway around, while debris is strewn over an area half and acre in size. The wreckage then rolls down the side of the hill, stopping only when the wing catches a crevice. Johnson’s passenger, Clarence Sutliff, staggers to make it to a nearby trail to find help. Sutliff uses a jackknife to carve markings into trees to guide rescuers back to the crash site and Johnson. Although he suffers serious injuries, Dick Johnson is flying supplies to the Moose Creek Ranger Station less than a month after the accident.

1940 July 12, Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley become the first firefighters to parachute from a Johnson Flying Service airplane to extinguish a fire in the Pacific Northwest Region. On that day, the legendary Smokejumper program was born. In addition, Johnson Flying Service now has over 90 flight students flying in 23 aircraft.

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Missoula International Airport
5225 Highway 10 West
Missoula, Montana 59808
Website : www.flymissoula.com
Airport Information : 406 728-4381
Email us for more information : Click here