 |
| (Davenport Democrat and leader. July 2, 1917) |
The Davenport Aviation School opened with
a war plane, a crowd, and big plans on July 4, 1917.
Nine
weeks later, its manager was dead, its test pilot was lying badly injured in a
Davenport hospital, and the school was finished.
By
the end of September, workers were hauling the company’s airplane-building
machinery out of Davenport and moving it to Bettendorf. Not long after that,
the business disappeared.
It
had come apart almost as quickly as it had come together.
But
for a short time in 1917, Davenport wasn’t just trying to teach people how to
fly. A group of local businessmen, mechanics, and aviators thought they could
build airplanes there. They opened a factory, hired draftsmen and aircraft
workers, designed their own machines, and flew them over the city.
They
even talked about military airplanes as the United States was entering World
War I.
The
best known of those machines was King Boreas.
It
was built in Davenport and advertised as a 90-mile-an-hour “Army Tractor.”
Newspapers called it a war plane. The company said more airplanes were already
under construction.
For a few months, the idea didn’t seem crazy. Davenport might become an airplane manufacturing town.
The
story had actually started at least a year earlier.
On
July 29, 1916, the Davenport Aviation School was advertising for students.
“WANTED—AMBITIOUS
YOUNG MEN,” the ad began.
 |
| (The Evening Nonpareil. July 29, 1916) |
The school promised new equipment, powerful land tractors, hydro-aeroplanes and licensed aviation instructors. It also made another claim.
“We
build all types land or water bi-planes.”
That
line tells us that the Davenport Aviation School was never just a flying
school. Airplane construction was part of the plan almost from the beginning.
By
September 1916, the company had something to show for it.
The
school announced plans for three exhibition flights over Davenport and Rock
Island using a new machine called the “Davenport Type” hydro-aeroplane. It had
just been completed at the company’s factory at Front and Scott streets.
The
airplane was designed by Billie T. Cook.
Cook
is one of those characters who keeps showing up in the story. Sometimes the
newspapers called him Billie. Sometimes William. He was an aviator, aircraft designer,
and instructor. He appears to have been the technical force behind much of what
the Davenport operation was trying to do.
The
September newspaper account said Cook had been testing the strength and speed
of the new hydro-aeroplane.
The
paper called it the first machine completed in the company’s new Davenport
factory. It had attracted considerable interest around the Tri-Cities.
That
was the business model.
Build
airplanes. Fly them in public. Draw a crowd. Sell machines. Sell flying
lessons.
It
was part factory, part school, and part show business.
That
wasn’t unusual in early aviation. Airplanes were still entertainment. Pilots
were celebrities and daredevils. Exhibition flights brought crowds. A machine
circling over town could empty stores and offices as people rushed outside to
watch it.
The
Davenport Aviation School was trying to turn that excitement into a business.
By the spring of 1917, the operation was getting bigger.
 |
| (The Muscatine Journal. September 29, 1918) |
On March 23, the Davenport Democrat and Leader reported that Davenport’s airplane factory was preparing to begin active operations in the old Independent Baking Company building on Front Street between Brady and Perry streets.
William
Cook announced the move.
The
paper identified several of the people putting money behind the venture. Reed
Lane, Dick Lane and Decker French were backing the company financially.
The
company was hiring, too.
Jay
Utts Jr., son of former Moline mayor J. A. Utts, had been hired as a draftsman.
Rex Bettor of Des Moines was expected to join the construction staff. The
company said it planned to hire more experienced airplane men.
Cook
was talking big.
Once
the machinery was installed, he expected three or four airplanes could be
completed within four days. Applications were coming in from different parts of
the country. The newspaper reported that “many orders for planes are now in.”
Maybe
they were.
Early
aviation was full of big promises, optimistic production numbers, and machines
that never made it much farther than the workshop. There is no evidence yet
showing Davenport cranking out airplanes by the dozen.
But
this wasn’t just a couple of guys in a shed, either. They had financial
backers, a factory, draftsmen, and mechanics. They had a designer. They were
looking for customers.
Then
the timing changed everything. The United States entered World War I on April
6, 1917.
Airplanes
were no longer just toys for rich men and daredevils. They were weapons.
Governments needed aircraft, pilots, and mechanics. Factories around the
country were looking at military contracts.
The
Davenport Aviation School had an airplane factory at exactly the right moment.
By
June, it had a new machine. Its name was King Boreas.
The Daily
Times introduced it on June 30 under a headline that left little doubt
about how the company wanted people to see it.
“WAR
PLANE IN A TEST FLIGHT; TO EXHIBIT FOURTH.”
The
airplane had made its first test flight the previous morning at Suburban
Island. Louis Bodor was at the controls.
 |
| (The Daily Times. June 30, 1917) |
The
airplane had an 80-horsepower engine that the company claimed it could reach 90
miles per hour and stay in the air for around ten hours. It could carry about
800 pounds and had room for a pilot and two passengers.
Those
were company claims printed in a newspaper. They should be treated that way.
But
the airplane did fly. It wasn’t a wooden mock-up rolled out for photographs. It
wasn’t a design somebody had sketched on paper and hoped to build
someday.
King
Boreas got
off the ground.
The
newspaper also described the factory as a complete plant for manufacturing
flying machines.
Another
article carried a photograph of the new airplane with “DAVENPORT AVIATION
SCHOOL” painted across its side. Its headline said Davenport was “Now Turning
Out Aero Tractors.”
The
caption went further, saying other airplanes were already under construction at
the company’s Front and Brady Street plant.
Again,
how many were actually finished is another question. But by the summer of 1917,
Davenport Aviation School was publicly presenting itself as an airplane
manufacturer.
The
school came next. Its formal opening was set for July 4.
The
July 3 advertisement was hard to miss. “Davenport Aviation School” filled the
center of the page in huge type. Suburban Island was listed underneath.
 |
| (The Daily Times. July 3, 1917) |
There would be thrilling exhibition flights at 10 in the morning and again at 2:30 in the afternoon. Admission was 50 cents. Children under ten got in free.
There
would also be the christening of King Boreas.
The
July 2 Davenport Democrat and Leader called it the school’s
“new military tractor.” The company expected a crowd. There was even talk of
government officials attending.
America
was at war. Aviation was new. Davenport had its own airplane.
On
July 4, King Boreas flew.
The
next day’s Daily Times reported that the airplane had made a
long flight over Davenport. For the people standing below, it must have been
something to see.
This
wasn’t an airplane from France. It wasn’t a Curtiss machine brought in from New
York for an exhibition. It had been built a few blocks away.
The
company now had the factory on Front Street and the flying operation on
Suburban Island. Students could learn about airplanes, help build them, and
eventually learn to fly them.
One
of those students was a young woman named Neta Snook.
Snook
was studying at Iowa State when she became interested in flying. The Davenport
Aviation School offered the chance. She paid $400 for instruction and came to
Davenport.
She
would later remember that the students helped build the airplane they were
going to use. They worked with wooden spars, linen, wire, and turnbuckles. They
learned the machine inside out because they were helping put it together.
Neta Snook, The most famous student of the Davenport Aviation School.
(Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. July 13, 1921)
That sounds primitive now. In 1917, it made some sense.
A
pilot who couldn’t understand his airplane mechanically would not have much
help when something broke. There weren’t aviation service centers scattered
across Iowa. There weren’t mechanics waiting at every landing field.
If
the airplane broke, somebody there had better know how to fix it.
Snook
was the only woman in the group. She eventually became one of the better-known
women in early American aviation. A few years later, in California, she would
teach another young woman how to fly.
Her
name was Amelia Earhart.
None
of that was known in Davenport in 1917. Snook was just another student trying
to get into the air.
She
got her first airplane ride at Davenport on July 21. The school had been
formally open seventeen days. It wouldn’t stay open much longer.
On
September 9, an airplane carrying school manager R. K. Cresswell and aviator
Louis Bodor crashed at Suburban Island.
Two
days later, the Daily Times reported that Bodor was fighting
for his life at Mercy Hospital. His thigh was broken. He had spinal injuries
and internal injuries. Doctors thought he had a chance to survive. Cresswell
was killed.
The
airplane was wrecked. The newspaper reported that the motor might be saved.
For
a flying school that had formally opened just two months earlier, it was a
devastating blow. Cresswell wasn’t simply a passenger. The newspaper identified
him as the manager of the Davenport Aviation School.
Bodor
wasn’t some inexperienced student, either. He was the aviator who had
taken King Boreas up on its first test flight in June.
The
crash effectively ended the Suburban Island school.
Neta
Snook left Davenport with only around 100 minutes of flying time.
But
the company wasn’t quite dead. Two weeks after the crash, another short
newspaper story appeared.
On
September 25, the Daily Times announced:
“AVIATION
SCHOOL IS MOVING TODAY.”
The
subhead named a company that had barely appeared in the story before.
“BLACKHAWK
AIRPLANE CO. LEASE BUILDING IN BETTENDORF.”
The
article explained that the Blackhawk Airplane Company, “better known as the
Davenport aviation school,” was moving its plant from Front and Brady streets
to Bettendorf.
The
company planned to continue building airplanes.
Its
machinery and equipment were loaded for the move. The new building offered
better quarters and more room for assembling machines than the old fourth-floor
factory in Davenport.
Then
the trail goes cold.
Blackhawk
Airplane Company disappears from the newspaper record.
There
are no stories of a thriving Bettendorf airplane factory. No stream of
advertisements selling Blackhawk airplanes. No reports of military contracts or
dozens of machines leaving the plant.
At
least none have surfaced.
The
great Davenport airplane business seems to have ended almost as quickly as it
appeared.
Billy
Cook didn’t. By the following year, he turned up in Oklahoma running another
flying school there.This one reportedly had 12 airplanes. Whatever happened in
Davenport hadn’t killed his belief that there was money to be made in aviation.
For
Davenport, though, the experiment was over. That’s probably why the story has
been reduced over the years to a few lines about an old flying school on
Suburban Island. It opened. Neta Snook studied there. There was a crash. The
school closed.
That
version isn’t wrong. It just leaves most of the story out.
The
Davenport Aviation School existed before its formal 1917 opening. It was
advertising for students in 1916 and already telling customers it built land
planes and hydro-aeroplanes.
It
had an aircraft factory, financial backers, and employed designers, draftsmen,
and mechanics. It built and tested a Davenport Type hydro-aeroplane in 1916.
It
expanded its manufacturing operations in 1917. Then it built King
Boreas, an 80-horsepower tractor biplane promoted as a military aircraft
capable of 90 miles per hour.
The
machine flew.
The
company said others were under construction.
For
a few months in 1917, while the United States scrambled into a world war and
aviation was changing almost by the week, Davenport had a shot at becoming
something nobody would associate with the city today.
An
airplane manufacturing town.
It
didn’t happen.
Maybe
the company was under-capitalized. Maybe the orders weren’t as plentiful as its
promoters suggested. Maybe it never had a realistic shot at government
contracts. The fatal September crash certainly didn’t help.
The
newspapers don’t give us a clean answer. What they give us is a picture of
people moving fast.
Cook
and the others were working in an industry that barely existed. There was no
established path for starting an airplane company in Iowa. There weren’t
decades of engineering experience to draw from. Every airplane was still
something of an experiment.
They
designed them, built them, and hauled them out to the field. Then somebody
climbed in and found out if they worked.
Sometimes
they did. Sometimes they didn’t.
For
about nine weeks in the summer of 1917, the Davenport Aviation School operated
on Suburban Island. Behind it stood more than a year of airplane building, promotion,
and big plans.
Then
it was gone.
But
for a little while, an airplane built in Davenport flew over Davenport.
Its
name was King Boreas.
And
the men who built it thought it was only the beginning.
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