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TROY DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, August 4, 1982

Historic files from Troy company donated to Smithsonian

By ROSS BODLE
Troy New Special Writer

In the thirties, plane after plane rolled off the assembly lines at the Waco Aircraft Company in Troy.  Waco led all its competitors in aircraft registrations during the period.
After World War II, the company which had established itself as an innovative leader in the aviation field faltered for lack of sales.
By 1957, Waco had folded and the owners had sold the remaining aircraft parts to the Wacos in existence running.  Waco officials discarded the paper files, including original drawings, blueprints, and one-of-a-kind photos of Waco planes and company literature.
The history of an important company in the early development of aviation lay on the trash heap ... until welding department foreman Bernard Berchtold and his son pulled up with the family car and loaded it with the files.
Berchtold partitioned off part of the basement at his home, 817 S. Mulberry St. in Troy, and spent the last 23 years of his life categorizing and setting up an intricate system of the Waco material, with the assistance of his wife Mary and occasionally a secretary.
"My husband was always a pack rat," remembered Mrs. Berchtold, sitting in a room in their house with some of the Waco memorabilia piled in front of her.  "He saved everything."
Saving everything eventually paid off.  The Berchtold collection now rests in the National Aerospace Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.  The Smithsonian acquired the collection from Mrs. Berchtold late last year.  It was donated to the museum as a gift from the Berchtold family and has been established as a memorial to Mrs. Berchtold's husband.
A moving van hauled much of the collection away last December, taking memories of hours and hours of organizing and filing with it.
"We would go through and put them (the files) in numerical categories, label the drawers and inserts of the files - what print numbers it contained."  Mrs. Berchtold explained of the approximately 12 hours per week she and her husband spent organizing the material.  Her husband also set up a cross index and an inventory listing of every drawing made by the Waco Company.
"It was his life," Mrs. Berchtold said.  "Waco airplanes were his love."
Berchtold began to realize how valuable and important his files could be when Waco airplane buffs began calling him from all over the country asking for prints, drawings and advice on how to restore Waco planes.
"These are tokens of their appreciation," said Mrs. Berchtold, looking down at the many snapshots of people standing next to restorations sent to her husband.
"He had a lot of knowledge stored in his head since he built the planes," said Mrs. Berchtold.
After her husband's death in November 1980, Mrs. Berchtold continued to receive inquiries from people looking for information on Waco planes.  The Smithsonian wrote letters asking to use some prints.
Mrs. Berchtold decided the collection needed to be centrally located, so she wrote to the Smithsonian asking if it would be interested in it.
"They were quite interested," she recalled.
The institute sent an appraiser to see Mrs. Berchtold.  He took pictures of the material, wrote a history about it and placed a value on it.  Not long after, Mrs. Berchtold was told the Smithsonian wanted the collection.
"Bernard Berchtold's files are a very valuable addition to our collection," said Don Lopez, chairman of the aeronautics department of the National Aerospace Museum.
The drawings are being used to answer inquiries from restorers of Waco planes, and the photos will likely be part of the "Golden Age of Flight," an exhibit to be displayed in April or May of 1984, according to Lopez.
The exhibit will highlight the period between the two World Wars.
"When these companies sprung into being and got aviation going in the country," explained Lopez.  "Waco was a major one."
The material not being taken by the Smithsonian, said Mrs. Berchtold, will be soon donated to the Troy Waco Historical Society.
The Berchtold family plans to go to Washington to the see the exhibit.
Mrs. Berchtold says the collection is "Bernard's legacy to those who have the good of aviation at heart."
"I'll be mighty proud," she said, to see the pictures that rested on a trash heap, were filed away in a basement in Troy, Ohio, and now will be a part of a photo exhibit of the history of aviation.
"I'm glad my husband had the foresight to pursue it," she said.  And so is the Smithsonian Institution.


[[image - photograph of Waco C-8]]
[[caption]] Waco Commercial Model C-8, made in 1938-1939 [[/caption]]

[[image - photograph of Waco manuals]]
[[caption]] Among the files were original manuals [[/caption]]


[[image - photograph of filing cabinets]]
[[caption]] The Berchtold collection filled many files [[/caption]]