A Little Proof Reading for Historians, please...

Please see: http://alexisparkinn.com/the_iowa_city_airport.htm

Here's why:

Mary and I have been researching the history of the huge, old Boeing/United
Airlines/US Post Office air mail hangar, located just across Rwy 25 from the
Inn here in Iowa City. According to Bill Tinkler, one of our summertime
guests (and a retired United Airlines pilot), this hangar is one of just
seven original air mail hangars still standing in the country.

Because of this, we are looking into petitioning to have the hangar put on
the National Historic Register of historic buildings. Unfortunately, in
order to petition for this placement, you need to outline the history of
your proposed building in pretty good detail. So, to this end Mary and I
spent a few hours at the library, the courthouse, and the register of deeds,
trying to find any early records of this amazing structure. Much to my
amazement, we discovered three things:

1. There is no "official history" of the Iowa City Airport, in print or
on-line, despite Iowa City's pioneering position in early commercial
aviation.
2. Once land is purchased by the City, the register of deeds no longer
"tracks" what goes on there. Thus, there are no records of when Boeing
built the United hangar, because it happened on city-owned land. (Luckily
other records survive...)
3. What history IS available is sketchy at best. Much of it is verbal, and
cannot be easily verified.

This lack of a written record bothered me all summer, and I kept searching,
thinking that there surely MUST be something written down, somewhere. I
eventually located a brief history of the first 70 years, written as a
class-project by four U of I journalism students back in the 1980s. While
useful, it hardly qualified as a comprehensive history.

It finally dawned on me that no one was going to bother writing a history of
the airport, given the current anti-airport stance within the City. And
even if they DID write one, it might be slanted in a way that made the
airport sound redundant at best, and hazardous at worst. So, I decided to
write one myself, and have added a webpage to our website entitled "The
History of the Iowa City Airport".

Please see it at http://alexisparkinn.com/the_iowa_city_airport.htm .

I compiled most of the information over the last few weeks, and wrote it in
the last couple of days. I'm sure there are factual and timeline errors,
and probably outright falsehoods there, but -- to the best of my ability --
I've tried to make it as accurate as possible.

Knowing that many of your are true aviation history buffs, steeped in the
lore of the early days of flight, I thought it would be good to ask you
folks to critique the page, soliciting suggestions for additions and
deletions. Please have at it, remembering that this is "Version 1.0", and I
expect to make many changes.

Sadly, despite this effort, I STILL know very little about the origins of
the United Hangar. Any information any of you may have is appreciated!

Many thanks in advance!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"