A dirigible touched down in nineteen oh five, the first airplane in nineteen eleven — and small planes still lift off beside the barracks today at the Pacific Northwest's oldest working airfield. Browse vintage aircraft in the free museum's hangar-style hall, on ground that once housed a wartime spruce mill.
You are standing at Pearson Field, the oldest continuously operating airfield in the Pacific Northwest, and one of the oldest in the United States. Aviation here began in nineteen oh five, when eighteen-year-old Lincoln Beachey set a dirigible down on the Army's open ground right around here. The first airplane followed in nineteen eleven, and in nineteen twenty-five the field was named for Lieutenant Alexander Pearson, an Army test pilot. This flat once roared with a First World War spruce mill — the same story the parade ground carries — lumber for Allied warplanes, cut where planes now taxi. Oakley Kelly, famous for the first nonstop flight across the continent, commanded the squadron here, though that flight landed elsewhere. The museum's hangar-style hall is free when open, and the grounds are yours dawn to dusk. The field beyond the fence is active, so enjoy the aircraft from this side.