
This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.
From the Flying Biographies of Harold E. Morehouse JOSEPH L. CATO Pioneer West Coast Plane Building - Pilot - Aviation Engineer Joseph L. Cato was born at [[image]] North Yakima, Washington, Febru- ary 18, 1889. Later his parents moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he attended private schools. The family then moved to Stockton, California, where Cato continued his schooling. Being mechanically inclined, he obtained work in a ma- chine shop after school to advance his knowledge of using tools and machinery. Cato first became interested in aeronautics in 1903 when he read some articles on gliders and gliding in the Scientific American Magazine in the local library. Cato became so absorbed that he read everything he could find on the subject, including the experiments of the Wright brothers. This resulted in his building some model wing sections which he towed in the wind to determine the centers of life and pressure. He started the design and con- struction of a 28 foot glider with which he succeeded in making one good hop before a smashup ended that project. Later he moved to San Francisco where he studied engineering in night school. In February, 1908, having learned that the War Department in Washington had prepared specifications and was requesting bids for a military airplane, Cato became one of the forty-one persons who submitted a price proposal which was 1