Page 89 - 2003 DT 12 Issues

Wha t’ s Insi d e !
Featured Articles
Strangers in the Sky....................................1
Couch PotatoTracks...................................5
Special
Quiz............................................................7

Departments
December 2 0 0 3 News & Notes............................................2
Programs & Hikes........................................4
Desk Schedule............................................6
Bulletin Board.............................................8

STRANGERS IN Hausler had Anderson Field up to Aero speed pilot and showman, Roscoe Turner,
Club standards. Now he engaged in a bit as a pilot. Not only was Las Vegas a stop
THE SKY of what was to become a Las Vegas trade- for pioneer aviators like Graham, it was
mark . . . showmanship. Why not an air city whose entrepreneurs were learning
Aviation comes to Las Vegas–
show on Thanksgiving Day! He got the the value of publicity.
the early days.
publicity, but couldn’t make the Los An- Showmen and publicity were one
by Chuck Kleber geles-Las Vegas-Salt Lake route pay thing, but Las Vegas needed bedrock sub-
financially and packed it up by 1924. stance to establish itself as an important
ay 7, 1920 . . . and Las Vegas’
aviation center. It came in the 1930s when
less than 3,000 residents heard
Ma strange noise in the sky. It a lawyer, politician, and native Nevadan,
born in 1876, made aviation a key part
was the engine on a Curtiss “Jenny” bi-
of his career. His name was Pat
plane. Most of them had never seen a
McCarran. As Senator from Nevada, he
plane. An airplane…here in Las Vegas!
wrote the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938
The pilot was Californian and newspa-
per editor Randall Henderson. He guided and fostered other important air
legislation. He was controversial and can-
the flying crate to a landing on Anderson
tankerous, but he was also a doer. One
Field, a patch of dirt at what is now Sa-
story has it that when told Pan American’s
hara and Paradise Road. Henderson spent
the next three days taking many of them Flying Jenny Chairman of the Board was busy in a
up for a thrill. People were agog, and the meeting, he thundered: “I don’t give a
local newspaper, Las Vegas Age, noted Still, Hausler had linked Las Vegas with damn where he is. I want to talk to him.”
De Havilland D.H.82 Tiger Moth And so he did.
that locals were “taking treatment for dis- aviation in a way that wouldn’t go
located necks.” It was a true milestone, away. Significantly, in the same year a If Pat McCarran did a lot for Nevada
the first plane to land in Las Vegas. young woman landed her plane in that aviation in Washington, Edmund Con-
There was another aviator of the day dusty backwater. It was Amelia Earhart. verse did it in Nevada by founding an
who saw Las Vegas in a more substantial In 1926, a Western Air Express bi- airline that will always be “Nevada’s Air-
way. Bob Hausler was an Army pilot, one plane landed at Rockwell Field (formerly line.” It was Bonanza Airlines. Ironically,
of a group of five who had flown from Anderson Field) to refuel. Out stepped this wealthy entrepreneur hated flying.
Los Angeles to Salt Lake City in 1918, pilot Maury Graham, a pistol strapped to Florence Murphy, an aviation pioneer and
scouting possible airmail routes. They his hip and a wide grin on his face. It was first female commercial pilot in Nevada
bypassed Las Vegas on the way to Reno, the first commercial airmail flight to Las said, “He was scared to death of air-
but Hausler saw it as a logical stop. It Vegas. The crowd cheered. Four years planes.” She was also a close associate
certainly made a lot more sense to him later, Graham’s plane crashed in a as vice president and corporate secretary
than the favored Sacramento–Reno flight snowstorm on a flight from Las Vegas to of Bonanza.
over the Sierra Mountains. If only he Cedar City, Utah. He survived the impact, Bonanza was an airline of “firsts”—
could establish a service facility in Las but did not make it out. In 1928, G. Ray the first successful commuter airline and
Vegas along with an airfield that met Aero Boggs established Nevada Airlines and the first to provide jet service to Las
Club and military requirements. He set inaugurated the first air link between
out to do that. By November 1920, Reno and Las Vegas. He hired the famous Strangers, continued on page 6