(Above: Photographed March 12, 2008, the memorial marker indicating the site of Springfield, Illinois’ first airport. In the background are essentially the same soil and trees that Charles Lindbergh knew when he passed “through” Springfield in 1926 and 1927.. Photo by Job Conger)
For about eight years, I’ve known about the marker placed at the site of our city’s first airport by Boy Scout Troop 11, and occasionally I’ve kicked myself for not knowing exactly where it is, and also not knowing anyone who had visited the place. Now I do know someone. His name is Job Conger, author of the forthcoming Springfield Aviation coming soon from Arcadia Publishing.
I knew I wanted to include a modern picture of it in the book, but everyone I asked just said “it’s out West Jefferson, just before you get to Bradforton Road.” Even the material at Lincoln Library’s wonderful Sangamon Valley Collection gave me miles to travel, but my car hasn’t had a working odometer since George Herbert Walker Bush occupied the White House. My friend and contributor Joe Angermier gave me the key to success this morning, and the blue sky gave me my mandate to visit.
“Out West Jefferson” is nice, but the key is Hazlett Road, Joe explained. “Turn north (right) at Hazlett. I hear the marker’s on the east side.” (There’s also a sign that says “Historical Marker Ahead” but there is no sign directing drivers to turn right at Hazlett. Joe’s words were not the news I wanted to hear because if the marker was on the east side, the sun was likely to be on the marker’s backside, and I’d be shooting into the sun, what experienced photographers describe, in technical jargonese, as “a no-no.”
But I went anyway, about 10:30 a, because the sky was blue and for the first time in more than a month, I had more than half a tank of gasoline in my tank, so to speak.
Joe was right: the marker was on the east side, but it was still a good visit. Fellow pilgrims may want to note that the marker is at the fifth telephone pole north from Jefferson.
There’s no place to park so I edged as close as I dared to the drainage ditch to keep the rare approaching motor vehicle from impacting it as I walked around. The sun in the east allowed me to capture the backside of the marker. More pics will be posted at AeroKnow.com AFTER I finish THE BOOK and send it in.
There were some plastic flowers carelessly unarranged against the backside; also evidence of wind or previous visitors moving a few just a foot or two away from it. I left them alone during the morning visit. Since I wanted to photograph it with the sun on the front of the marker, I returned home, worked on THE BOOK at home and headed back about 3:00. Good tiiming: the sun was where I wanted it.
Even so, I felt the way others feel visiting the preserved battlefield at Gettysburg, or even a tract of virgin Illinois prairie grass. For the picture above, I moved the artificial flowers on the opposite side of the marker and arranged them. I wanted to give folks who drive by there a few times a day to deduce some unknown soul cares about what that marker means.
Are you aware that rural Springfield has a rush hour that begins when school lets out? Easily five times as many vehicles passed by during my afternoon visit.
No problem. Because of photographs of the area I have gathered, examined and slated for publication,
I sensed echoes there. The sound of a Liberty engine in a DeHavilland DH-4 air mail plane roaring as the pilot lifts the tail and feels lift making the airplane lighter on the wheels . . . . . the coffee grinder sounds of black Ford automobiles and U.S. Postal Service delivery trucks. There’s nothing to suggest there was a telephone at the field. There was probably an “out building” and a hangar, the aroma of coffee brewed in a pot on the top of a wood-burning stove, the sweet fragrance of 85 octane aviation gasoline, a whiff of cigarette butts toed into the rich soil, but no ticket office. The place was probably as quiet as any farm field except for when an air mail plane came and went. Not many Springfieldians were flying private planes then, and for the longest time, the airfield was not a major dot on a map. You could ride mail sacks in the front cargo hold of a DH-4 to Peoria or Chicago if you wanted to; if you had to, but it was a heck of a lot nicer to take the train. I wish I could have stayed an hour, soaking in the sun and sensory hallucinations, but I had work waiting: pictures to process and A BOOK to finish by deadline. So I departed a little after 4:00. In a few minutes, the evening south-bound air mail flight would arrive to pick up bags for the 5:15 departure for St. Louis and points southwest. I thought I heard a Liberty engine idling and air streaming through the wire wing rigging, making them vibrate like guitar strings and sounding like softy played penny flutes, as one of the Robertson pilots came in from the north for a leisurely touch down . . . . . or maybe it was just the wind . . . . . . maybe it was just something I knew a long, long time ago. . . . .
Live long . . . . . . . . and proper.
