Old Missoula

The following article appeared in the Missoulian Centennial issue on page 34 of Section E.

The opening of the new airport in 1941 began a new era in aviation history in Missoula.

Construction of the million-dollar port six miles northwest of the city on U.S. Highway 10-93 began in 1939. A total of 1,120 acres of land was acquired by the county with assistance from the city. The airport which was a Works Progress Administration project called for three runways.

The first was 200 feet wide and 7,050 feet long, the longest in the Civil Aeronautics Administration program providing Northwest airports with adequate landing fields. The second was 150 feet by 5,900 feet, and a third 150 by 6,400 feet.

Highest Rating

The airport was given the highest rating by Civil Aeronautics Administration officials in 1940. Only two airports in Montana qualified for this Class 4 rating – Missoula and Billings. The only airport Missoula had until 1940 was Hale Field a mile and a half south of downtown Missoula, six blocks outside the city limits, which was the home of Johnson’s Flying Service and Northwest flights. Northwest moved its offices to the county airport in 1941.

Fire Hits Hangar

The Johnson Flying Service moved its operation to the Missoula County Airport in 1954 after a fire swept through a hangar and machine shops at Hale Field. Airplanes and heavy equipment were saved from the flames by feats of strength considered impossible under ordinary circumstances.

In 1950 construction of a new $150,000 administration building at the Missoula County Airport was completed. At this time prior to the Hale Field fire, Missoula was the only city in Montana with two commercial airports; The county port and Hale Field, headquarters of the Johnson Flying Service, largest private flying service in the state and one of the largest in the northwest. A second private service, Missoula Aerial Service, was headquartered at the county airport.

At Hale Field five large hangars housed private planes, Johnson light planes and shops and five large multi-engine Johnson ships. The new administration building at the airport housed Northwest Airlines, the Weather Bureau and Civil Aeronautics Administration offices as well as a cocktail lounge and restaurant.

$100,000 Project

When the Johnson Flying Service moved to the County Airport, new hangar and shop buildings were just receiving finishing touches. The buildings at the port, a hangar and a shop and office building of 10,000 square feet, were built by the County Airport Board for about $100,000.

By 1956 wet weather was curtailing airport use from time to time. The airport was closed temporarily in 1956 to use by DC4 transport airplanes, one of which caved through the apron near the administration building in March.

The DC4 four-engine transports weighing 30 tons had been landing in Missoula regularly only since the previous November. The Northwest Airlines’ 12-ton DC3 ships continued to land.

Problem Widespread

In the fall of 1955 a 45-ton DC6B plane had sunk through the runway. In a speech in 1956 Frank W. Wiley[1], director of the Montana Aeronautics Commission, said that when Missoula County Airport runways were constructed 15 years before, they were thought to be quite adequate.

Airports all over the United States were experiencing the same difficulties as encountered in Missoula with the advent of heavier and faster aircraft than thought possible in 1940, according to Wiley. Wiley predicted that planes dealing exclusively in freight might well be making regular stops in Montana communities by 1956.

Runways Constructed

In 1957 a $222,000 runway reconstruction job at the county airport was completed. The CAA provided 53 per cent and the local agency provided 47 per cent of the cost. The county’s share was obtained through the sale of lands.

In 1958 Northwest Airlines changed to all-four-engined service. The change of DC3 schedules to four-engined DC4 Clubliners was the final step in conversion of all NWA flights to the larger planes.

Missoula became a link in a new around-the-world air service in 1958. Travelers from Missoula were able for the first time to go around the world in either direction on the new system, flying all the way in radar-equipped NWA and TWA planes. The fare from Missoula to Missoula was $1,385.20 tourist and $1, 893.50 first class.

For Reconstruction

In March 1960 Missoula was allotted $74,382 by the Federal Aviation Agency. The bulk of the grant was to be used for reconstruction of the surface of the airport’s east runway.

Throughout these years the Johnson Flying Service, in spite of setbacks, had been making progress. In 1948 a Johnson Flying Service pilot, Jack Hughes, was the first flier in Montana to receive a helicopter license. In 1950 the Civil Aeronautics Board authorized nonscheduled air transport operation by the Johnson Flying Service. Until 1950 all nonscheduled operations were under the extension of a regular grant which the CAA canceled.

The same year a Johnson pilot flew to Cut Bank to participate in the filming of “The Thing,” a motion picture of RKO studios. In 1957 the Johnson Flying Service converted three former Navy torpedo bombers into aerial spraying planes. The Service continued its services of finding lost hunters, bringing the ill and injured to medical attention, helping people to catch trains, dropping food to winter-starving animals, transporting military personnel and fulfilling Forest Service contracts.