Missoula’s 1st Airplane – Lon Brennan
Lon Brennan – Missoula’s 1st Airplane
Owner of First Airplane Here, Lon Brennan, Is Dead at 69
Funeral services were conducted Thursday at the Bleitz Funeral Home in Seattle for Lon Brennan, 69, of Camano Island, Wash., who owned the first airplane in Missoula and operated a bakery here in the early 1900s.
Mr. Brennan was born in Hamilton and attended Loyola High School. He owned and operated the Royal bakery here in the early 1900s.
He was appointed chief pilot for the air ferry service between San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., in 1930. He moved to Alaska in 1934 and worked as a bush pilot until 1939 when he founded Lon Brennan’s Flying Service at Manley Hot Springs, Alaska. He operated the business until 1948 when he retired.
Surviving are his widow, Lynden of Camano Island; a daughter, Mrs. Dorothy Mutchler of Fairbanks, Alaska; a stepson, Bob Byers of Seattle, and sister, Mrs. Marcella Selfors of Auburn, Wash.
The above article appeared in The Missoulian on May 27, 1967.
For more on Lonny Brennan you can read about him in Frank Wiley’s great book about early Montana aviation – Montana and the Sky by Frank W. Wiley. Brennan was a fantastic pilot and a very lucky one at that.
https://archive.org/stream/montanaskybegin1966wile_0#page/152/mode/2up
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