Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Monday, October 3, 2016

Ranger Airport (F23)

Civil Air Patrol cadets walk past the airport office.

     The city of Ranger was named in honor of the Texas Rangers who in the 1870s guarded settlers.
Ranger now has a museum, the Roaring Ranger Museum that exhibits items from its oil boom from 1917 to the early 1920s. The gusher that produced 1,700 barrels of oil the first day led to more oil discoveries in West Texas. (forts.pdf, page 16)

     The airport opened in 1911 and became the third oldest airport in Texas. The text in the marker pictured below says: 

     "The Texas Department of Transportation's Aviation Division lists this field as the third oldest operating in the state. 

    The earliest documentation for an airplane landing in Ranger was on November 24, 1911, when Robert G. Fowler landed his Wright biplane on the V.V. Cooper, Sr. field just west of the present airport building, on the eastern edge of Ranger College. Fowler, an early aviator, landed in Ranger during his transcontinental attempt to win publisher William Randolph Hearst's $50,000 prize for the first person to fly across the United States in 30 days. 

     In the spring of 1928, C.J. Moore and various aviation boosters determined to build an airport for Eastland County began searching for a suitable site. They purchased the 135-acre V.V. Cooper, Sr. tract, and officially dedicated the airport on Armistice Day, November 11, 1928. Called Haugland Airport in the 1930s, the airport was renamed Ranger Municipal Airport in September 1939 when the Ranger Flying Service, owned by Russell B. Miller, Hall Walker and O.G. Lanier opened a civilian pilot training program at the airport. 

     Several noteworthy aviation events have occurred at Ranger Field. On June 16, 1931, aviatrix Amelia Earhart landed her Pitcairn Autogiro here. In the 1930s, Ranger Airport served as a midway point for glider races from Grand Prairie to Sweetwater and back. 

     During World War II, Army Air Forces Piper L4 Cub pilots flew into Ranger Municipal Airport on multiple occasions for two to three days of practice in the clear skies around Ranger. Since World War II area citizens have worked continuously to make Ranger Municipal Airport an asset to the city, county and state. (2006)"


The airport hosts an airshow every year. 
Visit their Web site at Ranger Air Show .

Watching the show under the wing of a T6.


Above and below, Aaron Taylor's T6 flies for the crowd.


Jared Calvert gives airplane rides in his 1927 Curtiss Wright Travel Air.

From Fort Worth, Charlie flew his Cessna 195 to see the show.


Above and below, a Pitts shows some gravity-teasing moves.


A Piper and the Travel Air in formation.


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JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.