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[[image - seal of the OX5 Club of America
OX5 News 
Published by and for Members of the OX5 Club of America
December, 1965 Subscription Price $1.00 Per Year Vol. 7, No. 6

William Anson Kidder -- Aviator Pilot No. 1013
By Anne M. Holey

[[image - photograph]]
[[caption]] William Anson Kidder [[/caption]]

The leather cover is fragile now, and the document inside is yellowing a bit, as is the photograph. As with many another cherished memento, the legend reads "Federation Aeronautique Internationale --Aero Club of America," and on the 28th of November, 1917, William Anson Kidder became Aviator Pilot #1013.

Back in 1908, as a long- legged young man of twenty-one, Bill made a trip to California.  While visiting there, he saw a poster advertising an aviation show and meeting to be held at Domingoes Ranch between Los Angeles and San Pedro. There he was fascinated by airplanes housed in the circus tents, and he spent most of his time at the field until the meet was over. Some of the planes, built by local inventors, had five or six tiers of wirings "like full-rigged Clipper ships." Most of them never did get off the ground and several were wrecked.  But there were, also, two Bleriot monoplanes and one Pusher.  And Bill recalls two records being established during the meet -- one, an altitude record of about two hundred and fifty feet, and the other a cross-country flight of ten miles. 

So, there among the circus tents, the dream was born. Bill knew that someday the opportunity would be his to learn to fly. He bided his time until 1917, when his application for a commission in the Signal Corps was denied because of less that perfect eyesight and hearing. Determined to fly anyway, Bill headed for the East and the Curtiss Airplane Company flying school. There at Newport News, on November 28, he received his FAI flying license from his instructor, Eddie Stinson. 

If you were a pilot in 1917 and not in the Signal Corps, it was quite a trick to just keep flying. Eddie Stinson's mother had a flying school in San Antonio and was in need of a couple of instructors, so Bill and Gilbert Budwig, his roommate, took the jobs. However, between them they had just enough money for one train fare to San Antonio. Winning with the toss of a coin, Budwig boarded the train with the promise to wire the extra fare money as soon as he got it from Mrs. Stinson.  A week later, Bill was on his way to Texas. When he stepped of the train, Budwig was there to meet him. But it was a Budwig on crutches and with a bandaged head who announced, "Bill, I cracked up her last ship yesterday."

So Bill, once again, headed East for the Curtiss Company determined to acquire an airplane and to set his own operation. Back at Curtiss, he was told that he would have to go to New York City to see John Willys, who now controlled the Curtiss Aeroplane Company and the several thousand training Jennys that they had brought back from the Army. After cooling his heels in the outer office on Madison Avenue for several days, he was rocked slightly when Mr.Willys' opening question was, "Well, young man, what territory do you want, and how many planes will you contract for?" Thinking fast, as he still does today, Bill picked four States - Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana. Willys seemed surprised and asked, "What is the name of your company?" Bill quickly replied, "The Curtiss Northwest Airplane Company." To forestall further discussion of airplanes in quantity, Bill argued that all he needed now was a demonstrator and would arrange to pick up each plane as he sold it. The discussion concluded with the contract Bill wanted and a note to the man in charge of airplanes in the government hangars at Lonoke, Arkansas.

Arriving in Lonoke, Bill found an old friend and Curtiss pilot, Al Johnson from Dayton, Ohio in charge all alone. Lonoke was a sleepy little town in the turpentine belt, and Al Johnson, heartily sick of the heat and his lonely job, wanted Bill to take every plane on the closed-down field. A few days of talk and he persuaded Bill to take more than just one. Upon request, the railroad sent twenty-five open end express cars, and Bill hired every man in Lonoke, who could use a hammer and a pair of pliers. They took those Jennys apart and loaded them three to a car with the wings stacked alongside -- thanks to a kindly southern gentleman banker, who loaned money for the worker's wages on faith. So Bill started north with seventy-five Jennys. He had no money, no company, no flying field. But he was in business.

It would be hard to describe the frantic activities of the next few weeks - borrowing money, incorporating the Curtiss Northwest Airplane Company, and renting a sixty acre level field at Lexington and Larpenteur, directly across the street from the State Fair grounds in St. Paul.  There he set up his operation...sales and service, air rides and charter, flight instruction, aerial photography, forest survey and fire spotting, flying news pictures for the papers, aerial spraying and spore trapping for the State entymologist, promotions and advertising. He often had twelve to fifteen pilots out and covering the County Fairs. Two of his pilots, Eddie Ballough and Chet Jacobson, flew the Dempsey-Gibbons flight pictures from Shelby, Montana to Chicago for national distribution. He put a travel and ticket office in the lobby of the Curtis Hotel in Minneapolis, which he believes was the first of its kind in the country. When asked if he might been the first fixed fixed base operator in the United States, Bill replied, " No.  A chap in Texas got a franchise for Curtiss planes from John Willys right after I got mine, but he already had a field, so he got rolling a month before I did. But we two were the first, I guess."

It was his early work with aerial photography that was an inadvertent instrument in the formation of one of this country's finest airlines. Returning from a photographic job one clear day in late November, his photographer, Paul Hamilton, exposed the remaining plate in in his camera by shooting a picture of the Ford Dam in the Mississippi River between the Twin Cities.  The resulting picture was of such excellent quality that Bill had it enlarged, framed, and sent to Henry Ford as a Christmas gift.  This was the beginning of a pleasant and, as it turned out, a fortuitous association.

When the Air Mail came up for civilian bid, Colonel Brittin,  who was then with the St. Paul Association of Commerce, obtained options on the land that is now Holman Airport. Everyone worked hard

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