For veteran aviators like Ralph Woodhouse of Payson, the recent $300,000 fire at Carbon County Airport bring back unpleasant memories of a blaze nearly 60 years ago that threatened doom for the fledgling airport.
It was the depths of the Great Depression, but despite the hard times, aviation was catching on nationally.Woodhouse, who started flying in 1927, remembers the excitement among aviators and the general public in 1933 as 14 Utah communities applied for Civil Works Administration (CWA) funding to build a network of airports in the state.
It was part of a $10 million program to build 2,000 airports throughout the nation. Aviation was the wave of the future.
Price was a leader in private aviation, and lured Jimmy R. Lund, a well-known Los Angeles pilot with more than 9,000 hours of flight time, to come establish a flight school with his Whirlwind Waco 200-horsepower airplane.
The city leased 540 acres one mile southwest of town and roughed out a dirt airstrip that was dedicated Sept. 9, 1933, by state and federal officials.
Things were looking good. A hangar was built and students enrolled. C.R. Ferguson, owner of Carbon Ice Cream Co., was the first to solo, and he bought a plane. Woodhouse says others followed, including J. Bracken Lee, who later became the mayor of Price and then of Salt Lake City.
As a member of the Flying Utes, a statewide club, Woodhouse remembers going to Price and other communities to celebrate the licensing of new pilots.
Carbon County, which took over responsibility for the airport, applied for $12,000 in CWA funds to expand and upgrade the facilities. The project was a much needed economic boost. It employed 77 men with 45 teams of horses and two tractors.
Then tragedy struck.
Early Sunday morning, Jan. 21, 1934, fire gutted the hangar and destroyed three airplanes. Damage was in excess of $10,000, and there was not insurance. Arson was suspected.
The Jan. 25 issue of the Sun Advocate newspaper gave the following account:
"The property damage caused by the flames is small in comparison with the actual loss this county suffered. At the time of the blaze, the aviation industry locally was making rapid progress and Price was attaining deserved recognition as the most air-minded city in the state."
The paper said Carbon County Airport had more private aviation activity than any field in Utah, even though it had been operating only about six months. It had 21 students who had flown more than 300 hours. The field had logged more than 3,000 take-offs and landings and had accommodated some 400 passengers with no injuries or accidents.
The fire "kind of cooled things off," Woodhouse remembers.
Two weeks later, three young men confessed to having started the fire by accident while stealing gas. They were charged with second-degree burglary.
As the paper related, they were filling cans with gas from a barrel in the hangar and they lit matches so they could see.
Gas in one of the cans started to burn. "I picked up the can which was on fire," one of the boys reportedly confessed, "and started outside, but it burned my hand, and I dropped it. The other boys ran out. Just before I ran through the door I turned and looked back, and everything was in flames. We got in the car and drove home as fast as we could and went to bed."
Carbon County, Price and other surrounding communities raised more than $600 to go with a $4,161 grant from CWA funds to build a new rock and steel hangar, which was dedicated Oct. 28.
The Carbon County Airport was back in business. It continued to grow and eventually moved to its present location three miles north of town.