![]() ![]() On May 11, 1925, the Chief of Naval Operations formally established a Naval Air Reserve squadron at Sand Point. Fifty thousand people came out to Sand Point to greet them. Two of the planes completed the 26,345-mile journey on September 28, 1924. On April 7, 1924, after two weeks of preparation, four Douglas biplanes headed to Alaska and around the world. Sand Point's first serious mission came a year later when it was chosen as the beginning and ending points for the first circumnavigation of the globe by air. The Navy completed the first permanent hangar on April 6, 1923, when the base complement was the UW Army ROTC Jenny and six Naval Reserve airplanes. Congress authorized $800,000 for initial development as a joint Army and Navy airfield. It took until July 13, 1922, for the Navy to accept 268 acres from the county on a 10-year lease at $1 a year. (In 1971 during Seafair, the Goodyear Blimp visited Sand Point in one of the last occasions when it functioned as an airport.) ![]() The wording of the report supported the development of conventional, as opposed to rigid and non-rigid lighter-than-air craft. A joint Congressional committee visited the property and reported back on January 31, 1921, that it agreed with the Navy that Sand Point was the best choice for a base for heavier-than-air equipment. The Navy could not accept the site without an act of Congress. Clarence Blethen (1879-1941) of The Seattle Times paid for ditches to be dug to catch runoff. Pilots seeded the runway to give it a more reliable turf surface, which nevertheless turned to mud in the winter and dust in the summer. King County paid to ship a prefabricated Army hangar to the property from California. On October 8, 1921, he flew a Curtiss JN-4H "Jenny" biplane from Camp Lewis to Sand Point and made the first military landing there on a 500 foot dirt strip.ĭespite the lack of official funding, local Army and Navy officers worked to develop an air base. Army Major Henry Kress Muhlenberg (1886-1967), an assistant professor of military tactics at the University of Washington and a pilot, offered his assistance. Committed to an airport at Sand Point, King County commissioners authorized construction of an air strip. The plan to develop Sand Point encountered opposition from supporters of an Army air field just north of Camp Lewis, echoing other competitions between Seattle and Tacoma for preeminence on Puget Sound. As part of the festivities, air mail pioneer Edward Hubbard (1889-1928) landed a plane at Sand Point with King County Commission chairman Claude C. On June 19, 1920, local officials and Navy officers held a ground breaking ceremony which included a symbolic tree cutting. ![]() ![]() Nebraska (1900), King County commissioners began acquiring the small farms on the site. In the spirit of boosterism expressed in the building of Fort Lawton (1898) and in the construction of the U.S.S. The peninsula allowed takeoffs and landings free of obstructions such as buildings and power poles.The fresh water site was both free from tidal action and not subject to flooding.Its location on Lake Washington made it easily discernible from the air.Frank Fretwell (1882-1937) began to lobby King County for an airport at Sand Point (the location was at that time outside the city limits). World War I ended before the Navy made a decision, but a group of veterans with flying experience headed by Capt. Elected officials of King County and members of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce learned of this and remembered when a group of Army airplanes had visited the area on a Liberty Bond tour and landed on the Jefferson Park Golf Course, the only available landing field. Gregory received the assignment to find a suitable site and he ultimately fixed upon Sand Point. Navy wanted a base for aircraft to serve as the "eyes of the fleet" and to create an air umbrella over the naval bases and yards in Puget Sound. Units trained at Sand Point participated in some of the critical battles in the Pacific war.Īt the time of the U.S. Growing eventually to more than 400 acres, the Sand Point Naval Air Station hosted at its peak during World War II more than 5,600 Naval personnel, more than 2,400 civilian workers, and hundreds of aircraft. Under a variety of official designations, Sand Point, a peninsula in north Seattle that juts into Lake Washington, served for almost 50 years as an air base, aviation training center, and aircraft repair depot for the U.S. ![]()
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