Early daredevils made their mark here
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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Today the Sun-Gazette offers the next installment in a weekly history series that tells the stories of those who came before us.)
Just seven years after a pair of brothers in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, soared into the air, local daredevils took to the skies of Lycoming County, spawning a culture of aviation in the region.
The aviation buzz rolled over the country after that first manned flight by Wilbur and Orville Wright in 1903. Inspired by their innovation, local brothers Fred and Harry Burns teamed up with their neighborhood friend August Kuntz to build Williamsport's first airplane.
On Sep. 19, 1910, residents of Grampian Hills described hearing what seemed like a railroad train, and looking to the sky saw "great white wings" soaring overhead, according to a story in the Sunday Grit.
The Burns brothers and Kuntz had built the plane in a yard on Mulberry Street and then took it for its first test flight in Brandon Park. When the plane was completed, the model eventually was sold to the Federal Army of Mexico for scouting missions.
The trio may have been the first local flying daredevils to venture into the skies of Lycoming County, but they weren't alone.
Renowned birdman Lincoln Beachey, of San Francisco, came to Williamsport on his many travels across the country as a biplane flyer famed for doing loops and other daring maneuvers as America's first great stunt pilot.
According to the Sunday Grit, Williamsport residents gathered to see Beachey's flying machine lift off the ground on July 8, 1911. Beachey took off from the Kenmore Land Co. field, where East Third Street and Northway Road are now.
That was one of two spots favored by flyers in the early days of local aviation. Besides the Kenmore land, pilots would use a patch of farmland just south of Montoursville, at the site of today's Williamsport Regional Airport.
Despite earlier flights that piqued the interest of locals, the aviation boom did not sweep over the region until local pilots Capt. Cleo F. Pineau and A.W. Hinaman paved the way, according to David Frey, marketing director at the airport.
"Pineau and Hinaman were airport crusaders," Frey said.
Pineau, an avid motorcyclist, learned to fly in 1915 and served with the British Royal Flying Corps in World War I. After the war, he returned to Williamsport, where he helped to found the airport. He also founded Radiant Steel Co.
Hinaman was instrumental in local aviation, eventually heading up the Hinaman Aircraft Corp., which sponsored the first commercial flight from Williamsport to New York City. Hinaman also started a flying school at the airport and provided flying lessons for pilots during World War II.
It wasn't until 1929 that Lycoming County had an official airport.
With flight taking place mainly from the private fields of local farmers, Hinaman and Pineau saw the advantages of having an airport and pushed for a permanent location, Frey said.
It was not until Lycoming Manufacturing Co., which was building automobile engines at the time, decided to venture into the aviation world by building and developing airplane engines in the 1920s that the airport took shape.
Spearheaded by Chairman E.L. Cord, the company needed a place to test its engines. Working with the city of Williamsport and the local chamber of commerce, funds were raised to purchase 161 acres of land for $75,000 from three farmers just south of Montoursville.
The company invested $30,000 to build a hangar on the land and, in April 1929, the first plane powered by a Lycoming engine made successful trial flights.
The airport was dedicated on July 20, 1929, and was heralded as one of the great leaders of the aviation movement on the East Coast. Five trans-Atlantic flyers attended the dedication, including Amelia Earhart, along with a crowd estimated at 30,000 people, believed to be the largest in the history of the county.
Earhart said she came "to pay my respects to a city which, I hear, has one of the most modern airports in the East."