1937 airport Toronto, St Louis???

[LynnMilton]

Can someone help identify an airport. I will also post 2 photos once I figure how to do it.

1 Hanger-type building signed Robertson Aircraft Corporation.

2 Hanger building signed St Louis Flying Service and another St Louis Airlines.

3 St Louis Flying Service sign also says Fairchild. In front, a large single engine transport, high wing tail dragger, faired in front wheels, probably radial engine but covered with cowl. Fairchild 71???

[Doug Robertson]

Robertson Aircraft Corporation was organized in 1921 and had hangar at Forest Park, Missouri outside of St. Louis. They had an office building at Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri. Robertson was both a flying service as was called at the time and a manufacturer of aircraft. In 1926 they inaugurated a flying mail service flown by their chief pilot, Charles Lindbergh, between Chicago and St. Louis. The website Abandoned and Little Known Fields by Freeman may be helpful with the airport name and possible old photos. I wrote this without checking Freeman's.

[LynnMilton]

Thanks for the reply and the history lesson.

I am trying to identify some old photos my mother took on vacation (and did not make notes on the back of the prints!!!!) in 1937 1938 or 1939. I did not know she passed thru St Louis but it was possible as she was in Toronto in preceeding shots. There is a shot of large, single engine air transport, probably some version of a Fairchild 71 taken at the same airport. Photo forensics is challenging.

[baboola74]

Doug,

Are you part of the Robertson Aircraft? My husband's grandfather was born in 1902 and was employed by Robertson, Universal Air Lines, National Airways and those eventually became American Airways and then American Airlines. Have you ever heard of Capt. Ray Fortner or his birth name was Raymond Orville Fortner. He flew the maiden voyages of a lot of Curtiss Planes and American Airlines. He was part of the Quiet Birdmen and Grey Eagles. He flew the first airmail flights from various parts of Texas, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and to California. He was with Lindberg right at the time of some of his accomplishments. He was quite a pilot.

[Doug Robertson]

Thank you for your kind inquiry and some Robertson aircraft-related history. I have wondered before about any possible connection to Robertson Aircraft, but have found none. I have not found a connection to Curtiss-Robertson Aircraft either.

I have a copy of the 58 page illustrated Emerson family tree from 1870--1968. Isabella "Belle" Emerson (1871-1959) married my Grandfather Thomas D. Robertson (1869-1943) on October 23, 1894. I am in the family tree and I understand a relative in Colorado has been updating it.

The Emersons and Robertsons lived in southern Minnesota near the Iowa border. My late Dad Ralph Robertson was the son of the mayor Thomas D. Robertson of Kiester, MN and my late mother Elsie Robertson nee Ennis was the oldest child of the Publisher and Editor of the town newspaper, the Kiester Courier. Both of my parents were born in 1900.

My main familial connection to aviation dates back to my Uncle Eldo Ewald who married a Robertson, my dad's older sister Marie Robertson, born in 1896 and she lived 99 years to 1995. Uncle Eldo born in 1895 flew Curtiss JN-4 "Jennies" over France in World War I for the US Army Air Corps. I have a painting of a "Jennie" in flight in my living room.

My learning to fly and the antecedents to it are detailed in three articles on this site. Some time shortly after WWII, Robertson was the 112th most common surname in America. Probably not so now, but I was contacted by email via this site just this week by another Robertson, no relation. Thank you, again.