The arguments made sense to politicians wanting to see the region on the forefront of air development.  On June 14, 1920, King County purchased 219 acres on the peninsula jutting into Lake Washington. Purchase price of the small farms was $1,250 per acre, with part of the land simply swapped for 55 acres of unused county land elsewhere.  Financing was by 5 percent, 10-year county warrants.  Eleven more acres were soon acquired by condemnation, and 40 more purchased, to expand the site to 270 acres. Previous studies and discussions had called for a 400-acre site as the minimum needed for an air station.  It wasn’t until 1925 that King County purchased the final 130 acres of the point, bringing the field up to its planned size.

             Just five days after the initial purchase, Adm. F. A. Fields swung a carefully-honed ax in the glittering arc, carving a huge chip from one of the trees densely covering the land.  He alternated ax blows with former United States Sen. S. H. Piles.  The flying chips and the falling tree marked the formal beginning of development of the field.

            Claude C. Ramsey, chairman of the board of commissioners of King County and the spearhead of local backers, plunged a spade deep into the soil.  As he turned over the requisite shovelful, he decried, “I hereby dedicate this field to the service of our country!”

            Sand Point was at this time heavily wooded, and a favored picnic spot of Seattleites.  On the south shore was the popular Sand Point swimming beach.  The heavy coat of trees, a scattering of small hills, and a combination bog and swamp on the south side of the site all obstructed development of the point as an air station, but the advantages far outweighed these minor inconveniences.

            Proving its suitability as an air station, pioneer aviator Ernest Hubbard with Ramsey as a passenger made the first landing at the point as part of the ceremony June 19, 1920.  Hubbard was no newcomer to the air.  He had flown pouches of mail from the 13th Naval District in Seattle to Camp Lewis near Tacoma in 1916.  Working with William Boeing, he blazed the aerial route from Seattle to Victoria, B. C., when the century was still in its teens.  On Oct. 15, 1920, Hubbard flew the first United States international mail from Seattle to Victoria.  Mail bags were transferred to crack ocean liners in the Canadian city; Hubbard picked up the inbound sacks, and returned to his terminal on Seattle’s Lake Union.  He flew a Boeing c-4, and even leased his Seattle terminal from William Boeing.  He later rejoined the Boeing Co., and was one of the prime movers in forming the Boeing Air Service transcontinental mail route (Chicago – San Francisco) which evolved into United Air Lines.

            The acceptance dance continued, but at a pace that made the visible glaciers on Mount Rainier to the south seem hurried.

            On Sept. 11, 1920, the Navy Department gave evidence of its continued interest in Sand Point by requesting a report from the commandant of the 13th Naval District on its adaptability to Navy purposes. “It is,” came back the report in short order.

            At the same time, the Navy was moving on the political front.  Through Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, a request had been made to Congress to inspect the site.  A special joint committee was created on Jan. 4, 1920, and the five senators and five representatives of the committee toured Sand Point that summer.   The congressmen embarked in King County boats and were piloted along the brush beach of the point.  From the shore side, they tramped through the woods in an inspection of the entire site.  At hand to answer questions and present the Navy’s need for the station were Coontz, Rear Adm. Capps, Rear Adm. Parks and Lt. Cmdr H. W. Hill.  Members of the committee were Sen. L. Heisler Ball, Del., chairman; Sen. Miles Poindexter, Wash.; Sen. Henry W. Keyes, N.H.; Sens, Key Pittman and T.J. Walsh, Mont.; Rep. Fred A. Britten, Ill.; Rep. Frederick C. Hicks, N.Y.; Rep. A.E.B. Stephens, Ohio; Rep. Lemuel P. Padgett, Tenn. And Rep. Daniel J. Riordan, N.Y.

            Their conclusion was unanimous. On Jan/ 31, 1921, they reported back to Congress recommending the acceptance and development of Sand Point as a naval air station:

    “Sand Point is a comparatively level tract of land bordering upon Lake Washington, just outside of the limits of the city of Seattle … It is the opinion of this committee, and it so recommends, that a naval aviation base should be established in the Puget Sound region and that Sand Point is the most desirable site available for that purpose in this region and that it should be selected and acquired.  In general the country surrounding Puget sound contiguous to a body of water suitable for the use of seaplanes is steep or hilly and heavily wooded, and no other site combining the necessary features is known, although careful inspection has been made… The committee recommends that at least one unit of heavier-than-air equipment be at once established at a cost not to exceed $1,500,000.”

            The wording of the congressional report w s carefully chosen.  Proponents of lighter-than-air craft were also making a strong case for development of a base on the Pacific coast, and the congressmen signing the report reaffirmed their support for conventional aircraft.

            Adm. W. E. Moffett was a strong backer of lighter-than-air aircraft, and had the bureau of Yards draw up estimates for stationing three non-rigid airships at Sand Point, along with 18 airplanes, supported by a complement of 1,000 enlisted men and 100 officers.  The Bureau of Yards estimated on Nov. 16, 1921, that such a base would cost $2,938,000., of which lighter-than-air facilities and craft amounted to $1, 348,000.

            Oddly enough, a half century later the dream of blimps and dirigibles wafting over the calm waters of Lake Washington came true.  Goodyear tire and Rubber landed its Columbia at Sand Point during civic functions.  The blimp was a favorite at the annual Seattle Seafair, both in flying with its flashing messages over the city as well as ferrying dignitaries aloft on joyrides.

            Sites proposed for an air station included Camp Lewis, Nisqually Flats between Tacoma and Olympia, Stanwood Flats north of Everett, Port Orchard near Bremerton, Ediz Hook by Port Angeles and Everett.

            State and local officials were pressing the Navy to accept the station site, but were unwilling to make the donation in the absence of assurances that development would begin in the near future.

            The King County board of commissioners sent its chairman to Washington, D.C., with full authority to deed Sand Point over to the Navy.  Again, the county required that work would begin in the near future, and that the site would be an air station in perpetuity.  The proposal was laid on the desk of Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels. For two months, the county unsuccessfully pled its case, before returning to Seattle with deed still in hand.

            King County enlisted the active and aggressive aid of Sen. Miles Poindexter, the maverick Republican senator from Washington and the ranking member of the Naval Affairs Committee.  Poindexter prepared the congressional report on Sand Point, called his committee together, had the report endorsed, and later introduced a bill into the Senate accepting Sand Point and recommended an appropriation of $800,000 with which to start immediate work, against long-term work estimate of $1,500,000.  His bill sailed through the senate without a dissenting vote.  It ran into shoals in the House of Representatives and floundered.  Some representatives were willing to spend no more than $500,000 for a new air station, but the authorization bill could not work free.  Poindexter was a strong advocate of developing Sand Point, Bremerton Navy Yard and the Army base at Camp Lewis.

            In spite of the apparent calm, a fierce battle was being fought in the cloakrooms and corridors of Washington, D.C.  Washington’s congressional delegation was split, with some staunchly backing development of the Pacific Northwest’s air station at Camp Lewis.  It reflected the long-standing rivalries between Seattle and Tacoma, who had fought for railroads, ports, commerce and now the promise of the air.

            King County, hedging its bets, attempted to flank opponents by making overtures to the Army.  Initial response from both the Army’s air service and backers of a station on the level ground behind Camp Lewis was strongly favorable.

            On the other hand, while King County wooed the military and Congress, other factions within the county opposed holding the tract for a potential air base.  The substantial expense of the warrants used to purchase the unused site was an easy target.

            The Seattle Chamber of commerce asked for a special meeting of the King County board of commissioners, and on April 7, 1921, presented its strong case for development of an air field at Sand Point.

            Science was the watchword of the time, and science was the banner flown by the chamber delegation.  Famed Artic explorer Capt. Roald Amundsen was planning another voyage toward the North Pole, and he planned to use a pair of aircraft as part of his scientific observations.

            He needed an airfield for practice and trials, and Sand Point would be perfect for this, the chamber stressed.  Amundsen never used the field.  Delivery of his two aircraft was delayed, and the expedition never had a chance to assemble or fly them in Seattle.  The aircraft were loaded directly aboard Amundsen’s auxiliary schooner Maud just before the expedition departed on June 3, 1921.

            At the same time, the business booster group emphasized, the Boeing Co. had won a contract to build 200 airplanes for the United States government.   The company needed a field from which to test the air fleet.  Seattle-area aviators also desperately needed an airfield for flight and for testing.  The specter of the Army airplanes lined up on the golf links was still fresh in everyone’s mind.

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MODEL 40A

The overall redesign of the Model 40A was strong, functional and producible. All these attributes would be important for the operational success of the aircraft while flying the Contract Air Mail (CAM) Route #18 from San Francisco to Chicago. .. The Boeing Seattle factory had to build and certify twenty-five planes and then test fly them in less than five months. To add to this challenge when the aircraft were completed, in 1927 they had to be crated up, and shipped by truck or rail,  15 miles away from the Boeing factory ; cont.

continued: to Sand Point, located north and east of factory on Lake Washington because Boeing did not have a long enough runway near the factory. At Sand Point a pasture had earlier been cleared among the pines to serve as the needed runway. The 40A's flew out on May 20th 1927 and were all delivered to the customers by June 1st. This location also served as, King County Airport until 1928 when Boeing Field formally opened. 

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            The combination of industrial growth, scientific research, and protecting the site from alternative uses or disposal carried the day, and the board ordered construction of an air strip at Sand Point.

            Air strip?  Well, more of a trail through the woods.  A strip 500 feet wide and a half mile long was carved through the dense woods.  The field was more or less leveled.

            Backers of putting the Army on the site watched the County-Chamber meeting carefully, and as work began at Sand Point, Maj. H.K.C. Muhlenberg and Col. William Ingles stepped forward to offer their aid and expertise.  Muhlenberg was an assistant professor of military tactics and the chief of the Air Service Division of the Reserve Officers Training Corps at the University of Washington.

            Muhlenberg made the first military landing at Sand Point, flying his Curtis JN4H from  to Sand Point on Oct. 8, 1921.  Despite the county work, the field was considered to be too rough for aviation use, an opinion Muhlenberg ignored.

            The ceremonies weren’t over.  On July 10, 1921, a second dedication drew Secretary of the Navy Daniels; Secretary of the Interior Burton Payne; a number of United States senators, King County Commissioners Claude C. Ramsey, Thomas Dobson and L.C. Smith, William E. Boeing of the Boeing Co.; former Sen. S.H. Piles; Judge John Arthur; Air Service Capt. Frank M. Fretwell; Adm. F. A. Field; Capt. C. M. Halloran; Samuel Hedges, president of the Seattle Chamber of commerce; Seattle Postmaster Edgar Battle and a large number of private citizens.

            Postmaster Battle was a significant addition to the observances.  He was a powerful advocate of air service, and had awarded Hubbard the first international mail route to demonstrate the viability of air transport.

            The first military building on the station was a prefabricated metal hangar, supplied by the Army. It housed the Curtis Jenny used by the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps at the Univ. of Washington. King County paid the shipping bill on the sheet metal hangar, which arrived in the spring of 1922, and also paid to have it erected at the field.

              Maj. Muhlenberg immediately put the hangar to use for his ROTC training airplane, staking the Army claim to the field and at the same time being assigned as the field’s first military commanding officer.

            The Navy kept its foot in the door, despite a total lack of funding.  Lt. Theo Koenig and Lt. Cmdr. John H. Campman, both later stationed at Sand Point, were praised in Navy documents for their “splendid work” in developing the point into a functioning airfield.

            Seattle’s business community continued its strong support.  Clarance Blethen, of the family owning the Seattle Times newspaper, personally paid for needed ditching.  The Seattle Chamber of Commerce built a small temporary dock.

            Meanwhile, the Navy received another report on the suitability of Sand Point as a site for a naval air station.  Rear Adm. J.A. Hoogewerff, commandant of the 13th Naval District, sent a letter to the chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics, dated Jan. 30, 1922, outlining the advantages of the site.  He mentioned favorable topographic features of the site; favorable approach for land and sea planes; protection from southwest storms, which are the most severe experienced in this vicinity; exposure on three sides to Lake Washington for seaplanes; comparatively calm water in Lake Washington the entire year; practicability of expansion due to terrain, and absence of industrial activities in the vicinity; accessibility of Northern Pacific Railway; accessibility to the Navy yard, Puget Sound, Camp Lewis, city of Seattle and railroad terminals; ease of obtaining supplies via road, rail and vessel; strategic location relative to main Army and Navy bases in the Northwest; healthful location; and electrical power and water available by extension of city of Seattle lines.

            The Army may have been on site, but King County still hoped for a naval air station.  The county had carefully inserted a clause into its contract with the Army that should the Navy Department wish to use the Sand Point lands; The Army would relinquish what rights it had.

            Finally, after all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, the Navy was able to commit to Sand Point.  The $1 per year lease, for 268 acres, was signed July 13, 1922. Putting his name to paper on behalf of the government was Col. Theodore Roosevelt, acting secretary of the Navy.  Present was Coontz, then the Navy’s chief of the Bureau of Operations, and Rear Adm. W. A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics.

            Despite the Army presence, the lease went to the Navy.  The War Department ruled the Army did not have the legal authority to lease property for establishment of a base.  The Navy did have such authorization.

A ten year lease was negotiated, and signed Dec. 30, 1922.  Congress appropriated $800,000 for initial development, with Sand Point to be a joint reserve naval air station and Army Air Service field, since the interests of the two services were parallel.  Both Army and Navy personnel were allowed on site.

            Again, from King County’s viewpoint, the leases were a defensive fallback.  While station backers desperately wanted to deed the point to the Navy, the bulwark of a short-term lease at least prevented Sand Point from being used for other purposes or from being disposed of by the county.

            The Navy quickly made its presence physically felt on its new base.  Its first hangar was completed April 6, 1923.  by no stretch of the imagination was the base active, however.  The Army had one airplane at the field, The University of Washington ROTC had its Curtis JN trainer there, and the Naval Reserve had five Curtis JN trainers and one DeHavilland observation plane.

            Adm. Moffett dreamed of mapping a million square miles of territory north of Seattle by the airship Shenandoah.

Moffett arrived over Seattle May 17, 1923, in the huge airship, at the end of a five-day flight from its base in New Jersey.  The Shenandoah moored at , the only facility with a mooring mast.  Adm. Moffett toured Sand Point and promised that a mooring mast would be erected on the station in the near future.  Adm. Moffett returned to Seattle aboard the Shenandoah in 1924, again mooring at Camp Lewis.  The airship was destroyed in a windstorm in Ohio the following year; the northern exploration never took place.

            While limited training continued, the station dozed under intermittent use for special occasions. Gen. W.W. Pickett selected Sand Point as the official starting and ending point for the Army’s first around the world flight.  The four planes under the command of Maj. F.L. Martin lifted off April 6, 1924, with two aircraft from the flight returning Sept. 28, 1924.

            In many ways, it had been a race.  Fliers from England and France were winging east around the globe as the eight Army aviators – four pilots and four mechanics – traversed Alaska, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, the Near East, Europe, the Atlantic and back across North America.  Their European competitors fell by the wayside, their aircraft not up to the rigors of the long Journey.  The flight traveled 26,345 miles in 363 hours and 7 minutes of flying time.

            The Seattle Times commented in an editorial the Sunday the four Army planes returned: “Seattle finds great satisfaction in the fame that has been given Sand Point, the air base where the fliers took off and where they are to land today at their journey’s end.  “Hereafter Congress will remember Sand Point.  It will not be necessary to explain tediously where is situated or to expound on its many advantages… Its improvement becomes a mater of national duty.  “While a monument will mark the spot where the flight would be to develop Sand Point fully and completely as quickly as possible.”

            A crowd estimated at 50,000 watched the planes land.  After a brief greeting at Sand Point – still relatively remote, the fliers were taken to Volunteer Park in Seattle for a formal reception.

            While the Army was winging its way around the world, the Navy showed the flag in Puget Sound.  That summer, Coontz, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet, not only brought the great battle fleet to Puget Sound, but he had the naval training ship anchored at Sand Point.  Men were housed in tents on the tract all summer to show Congress his support of Sand Point.  Air squadrons of the battle fleet flew in and out of Sand Point in an impressive display of air power.

            The die had been irrevocably cast.  On May 11, 1925, the chief of naval operations authorized a single unit Naval Reserve air station based at Sand Point.  Following this, a Naval Reserve aviation division was organized in Seattle, which became the backbone of the many years of Naval Reserve aviation activity at the naval air station.  Planes were assigned for reserve training and the reserve unit obtained and developed shops and hangar space on the station.

            The field was also used by the Army for Air Force reserve officer training.

            To firmly cement its permanent interests at the Naval Reserve air station, the Navy ordered its first commanding officer to duty Nov. 17, 1925.  Campman, a familiar face during development efforts, came aboard as the commanding officer.  As commanding officer of the Naval Reserve air station, Campman directed the use of the facilities for the training of the Naval Reserve air unit.

            Ramsey estimated that by the time King County had spent in excess of $500,000 in acquiring and developing the facility, interest payments alone, he figured topped $2,000 a month.

            While he talked of costs, local purchase of facilities for military bases was commonplace.  Pierce County, for instance, put together and gave land to the government for Camp Lewis.  Fort Lawton, later to become a spectacular park in Seattle, had also been a gift to the federal government.

The long struggle to give Sand Point to the Navy ended on March 4, 1926,  Congress authorized the secretary of the Navy, as part of the Naval Omnibus Bill, “To accept on behalf of the United States, free from encumbrances and without cost to the United States, title in fee simple to such lands as he may deem favorable or necessary in the vicinity of Sand Point, Washington, approximately 400 acres, as a site for a naval air station.”

            Congress’ acceptance was carefully worded to be free from encumbrances.  The lack of strings attached proved right a half-century later as local governments squabbled over rights to parts of the station as they were declared surplus.  The city of Seattle wanted the property for a park.  King County wanted the property for an airfield, following the Navy’s use of the facility for aviation activities in 1970.

            On March 8, 1926, Secretary of the Navy Curtis Wilbur signed a letter notifying the county of final acceptance of its long-offered gift by donation.  Actual land area was 413 acres.  The King County sheriff supplied prisoners from his jail to clear the trees and undergrowth for expansion of the field.  Within a month, Secretary Wilbur asked Congress for $1,126,000 for finance development of the station.

            With work underway, On Oct. 10, 1926, the field was officially designated Naval Air Station Sand Point.

            In 1926 another “first flight” was attempted, although not as successfully as the Army expedition, George Hubert Wilkins (later Sir George) led a party that hoped to take off from Sand Point, travel across the North Pole, and land in Spitzbergen, Norway.  Adm. Moffett had first announced the attempt in 1923, although it had taken three years to put the final touches on the expedition.  Two Fokker biplanes were used in the flight, but both crashed before completing the transit of the pole.  Wilkins tried again in 1929 and was successful, but he started from a different field.

            Expansion continued, On Oct. 29, 1929, a deed to land adjoining the the south side of the station was presented to Adm. S.S. Robinson, commanding the 13th Naval District.  The acreage continued the tract known as Carkeek Park.  Seattle later developed another Carkeek Park in the northwest part of the city.

            That year the first plans for the station’s development were submitted to the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics.  There was still a long way to go.

             When Ensign D.N. Morris first reported to Sand Point for training in 1926, the point was a series of farms.  The field of one of the farms was used as a landing field, Morris remembered.  Only the lower part was used as the air station.  The administration building was one of the farm houses, and was referred to as the “White House,” until the commanding officer forbade it saying, “There is only one White House in the United States.”  The building, in defense of the reservists, was painted white.

            For organization, there was a squadron commander and three division officers who, though on inactive military status, reported for regular drills.

            In the beginning, Naval Reserve aviation cadets received a portion of their training at the station.  They were quartered in what had been a chicken house and the supply officer had his office in a farmhouse kitchen.  Maintenance was dependent on naval reserve funds.

            Ensign E.E. Dildine found himself in an odd situation for a naval aviator during the winter of 1926.  He had flown over the Cascade Range from Seattle to Wenatchee with no problem, but after landing in the Central Washington city, white, fluffy snow began to fall.  He was stuck in it with his wheeled aircraft.  The first stage of his ingenious answer was simple enough, he talked mechanics at Wenatchee into replacing the wheels of his aircraft with ski-type landing gear.  This meant replacing one problem with another, as he was bound for snow-free Seattle.  However a little detour solved that.  He flew south to Yakima, where the snow was packed hard enough to permit take-off on wheels.  He replaced the skis with his wheels, lifted off for the climb over the Cascade Mountains, and went on to Sand Point.  While the use of skis on planes later became commonplace, Dildine’s use of them was an example of ingenuity on both his part and on the ground crew’s.

            One of the most daring and yet today least know of naval expeditions put together its equipment at Sand Point in 1926.  The storm-swept , isolated and remote coasts of the Alaska Panhandle were ill-mapped.  Facilities at Sand Point prepared the Navy amphibian aircraft for their summer’s task of mapping southeastern Alaska by air.  The 1926 expedition proved so successful, and the base so convenient, that a second expedition was mounted by the Alaska Aerial Survey Department in 1929.  William Radford, later commanding officer of the Sand Point Naval Air Station, was a member of the 1929 expedition.  Four amphibian aircraft took off from Sand Point on May 21, 1929, for Ketchikan, Alaska.  Mapping continued, with Sand Point the ultimate home base, for several years. The Hydrographic Office and Forest Service used reserve planes from Sand Point for obtaining aerial photographs of the area.

The first air regatta in the Pacific Northwest took wing Nov. 14, 1926, hosted by Sand Point.  First event of the day was an air race from Sand Point to Taylor’s Mill in Snoqualmie, through Kirkland and over Lake Washington back to Sand Point.  The second event was a relay race from Sand Point to the Mueller-Harkins Airport south of Tacoma.  Mueller-Harkins is now the site of the Clover Park Vocational School.  AT Mueller-Harkins the planes landed and picked up a letter from Postmaster M.F. Backus addressed to Seattle’s acting Mayor W.H. Moore.

            Even the city of Seattle turned to the reserve pilots.  The city was developing a comprehensive zoning plan, and used aerial photographs taken by Donald G. Copeland in 1930 from naval aircraft as the basis for its zoning map.

            However, the station was still young with Sand Point Way a rutted dirt track extending from the fringes of the University of Washington out to the station.  During the long weeks of winter rain it became nearly impassable.  Dedicated reservists or ROTC students would hike the several miles along a railroad line or take a boat from campus to reach training meetings at the base.

            As Arthur Schultz explained, “I enlisted in the Naval Reserve as seaman second class in November 1927, after having served a three-month probationary period. Applicants had to attend drills to prove their sincerity.  Meetings were held weekly, and our compensation was the privilege of taking a week-end flight.”  Schultz retired in 1959.

            The 1927 Navy building program included an enlisted men’s barracks, small seaplane hangar, assembly and repair building, 100-by-200-foot storehouse, and relocation of the structure serving as administration building.

            In 1927, Seattle’s airport was the sand pile, on the banks of the Duwamish River near Boeing Plant One.  It was a soggy sand-covered strip, with sawdust floating in water puddles to give the appearance of a level field.  Pilot Vern Bookwalter, normally flying the Seattle-Los Angeles mail route took a group of dignitaries aloft to search for a suitable airport site.  Passengers included William Boeing, Seattle Mayor Bertha Landes, airline pioneer Vern Gorst (founder of the mail route of Seattle) and Frank Bell.  The group looked at the Sand Point area, but rejected it as “too foggy.”  But they liked a truck garden in South Seattle.  Bookwalter landed his Fokker in the garden.  Mayor Landes alighted and called, “Pilot, come here. Do you think these things are here to stay?”  The selection was made, and the seeds of the truck garden blossomed over the next decade into what was to become Boeing Field.

           But Landes didn’t dismiss Sand Point totally out of hand.  In early 1927, she was a passenger in a flight from Sand Point all around the Seattle area.

            Sand Point also played host to other well known personalities.  Following his famous Paris flight, Charles Lindberg embarked on a national tour.  He landed his Spirit of Saint Louis at Sand Point Sept. 13, 1927, on a flight that began in Spokane, went to the city of Yakima and then crossed Naches Pass.  Lindberg spent the night in Seattle, and continued on his tour the next day.

            The station was growing, so by direction of Secretary of the Navy Wilbur, Nov. 22 1928, the official name was changed from Naval Reserve Air Station to Naval Air Station Seattle (NAS Seattle).  Formally or informally, the station had also been known as Sand Point.

            The Boeing connection with Sand Point was reinforced in 1928, as the company delivered a number of NB-1s to the Navy.  The term “crates” really meant something when applied to aircraft of the era:  Manufacturers such as Boeing literally shipped the aircraft in large crates.  The NB-1s, conventional land plane trainers, were uncreated and assembled at Sand Point, and later flown to other bases.

            Boeing Models 40s were also assembled at Sand Point, after being barged to the field from manufacturing plants by the Duwamish river.  The Model 40 could carry 450 pounds of mail and four passengers in a miniscule cabin in front of the pilot’s open cockpit.

            The reassembly of Boeing planes, though, was coming to an end after eight years.  Finally, enough cinders had been shipped from Renton coal mines to lay down a base at King County’s Boeing Field and the runways could be paved – allowing the civilian field to be opened.  One of the last Boeing airplanes to be assembled at Sand Point was the Model 204 single engine pusher flying boat.  The Flamingo, as the plane bound for a South American customer was named, attempted its flight Jan. 26, 1926. It barely cleared the water before crashing.  Boeing was able to recover the damaged plane and successfully repaired it.

            Did the Navy need a second navy academy on the West Coast?  Then- congressman Warren Magnuson thought so, and he unsuccessfully backed a bill which would have established a second academy on Puget Sound.  His first bill failed to make it out of committee when introduced Dec. 1, 1938.

            He tried again in 1940, and for a third time in 1945, finally stipulating that it would be at Sand Point.  Magnuson wanted an upper division academy, with lower division classes coming from such universities as Washington and California.  Rejected in this, he attempted to site the naval post-graduate training school at Sand Point,  Magnuson could not carry the day, the graduate school went to Del Monte, Calif.

            Based on the appropriations made earlier, expansion of the naval air station forged ahead in 1929.  At the time the Navy announced plans for eventually building a $7 million air station.  Projects begun in 1929 including a hangar, barracks, a spur line crossing Sand Point Way on the west side of the station and connecting to the Northern Pacific rail line, storehouses, shops, and a real road connecting the base with Seattle.

The new barracks were in place in 1930, but the landscaping as one of the most attractive of any Navy bases was still to come.

           Work also began on construction of a turf runway 300 feet wide and 900 feet long, later to be extended to 1,800 feet in length.  It was an idea whose time never should have come.  Due to what is politely called the “dump” climate, the runway was too muddy to be usable.  During the dry season – whenever that was – it turned into a dust bowl.  Planes were eventually mounted on pontoons and flown from the lake.  Before this change, however, the pilots experimented with sowing grass seed on the field.  This new grass attracted so many ducks and other waterfowl that a sentry had to be posted to prevent damage to aircraft while landing.  Shotguns were standard equipment at inspections.

            Conditions continued to be somewhat primitive with Naval reservists reporting to the station for annual summer training were housed in tents borrowed from the Army.

            During 1929, Naval Reserve Squadron VN15RD 13 was based at Sand Point, flying OS2Cs Curtis Helldivers and SF2s Grumman Scouts.  A decade later, in 1939, the squadron received SBC4s, which were later sold to the French government for use in Martinique.

            During the spring and summer of 1929, a small group of seasoned aviation marines began building another Marine Corps tradition which today is the Pacific Northwest’s part of the vital Marine Air Reserve Training Command.  Then-Capt. L.B. Stedman and a few enlisted men under Marine Master Sgt. F.E. Sparling, comprised the first Marine air detachment at NAS Seattle.  Through the initial efforts of this small group of men, some of World War II’s best pilots and group personnel were trained.

            Two squadrons were formed, an observation squadron (VMO) later to be commissioned a scouting squadron (VMS), and a service squadron.  The VMS’ primary job was to scout out the enemy and observe their actions.  The service squadron assumed the responsibility of repairing and maintaining aircraft assigned for training Marine air reservists.

            Training continued to be paramount importance at the station.  Valentine Gephart, a Marine Corps Reserve aviator, writing in the Argus on Dec. 14, 1929, pointed out that NAS Seattle was providing primary training to the students of the Universities of Washington, Oregon, California and Southern California, placing Seattle foremost in the primary training of naval aviators.  Gephart, that year, was the aeronautical chairman for the Society of Automotive engineers, northwest section.  He tirelessly promoted the value of naval air, and was one of the principal figures in the engineering association’s support of air programs.

            Development of the NAS Seattle was under the direct supervision of Lt. C.W. Corywll, of the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps.  He was in charge of the major development of the naval air station at San Diego.  “It is interesting to note,” Gephart wrote in the Argus, “that this station was the industry that brought the little town of San Diego from the ranks of the obscure to one of the foremost cities of the Pacific Coast.”

            Training was not only paramount, it was highly successful.  Under station commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. John D. Price, executive officer Lt. Howard A. Beswick NAS Seattle won the Noel Davis Trophy for overall efficiency in 1929.

            And expansion continued.  On June 30, President Herbert Hoover signed a bill authorizing condemnation of 30 acres to provide a southern exit from the field.  Mud Lake, eventually filled, was included in this property.  Eight years passed; however, before the Navy department received title.

            Recognition Lane at the station was dedicated on Molly Pitcher Day (anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778) with the planting of trees and shrubbery donated in appreciation of civic service by individuals in subsequent years.

            Gephart, assessing the future of the station, had written:

            “It is impossible to predict all of the tremendous benefits that Seattle will derive from the development of this great air base at her door, but one can not even dream of a more substantial industry for this community than a government operation where there are employed large numbers of civilians, as well as hundreds of enlisted men of the Navy, together with having 50 or 60 officers and their families living in the city.”

            Despite the glittering predictions of the future, much of Sand Point was still a wilderness.  A wooded knoll, where the No. 1 runway would be built, was a favorite camping spot for local Boy Scouts as part of their woodcraft training.  Officers making their station inspections were not pressed for time.  They frequently took along a gun and dog and shot rabbits while on their rounds.

            Lt. H.B. Hutchinson arrived at Sand Point in 1931 as an aerologist.  NAS Seattle was one of only five naval stations in the country.  The others were Pensacola, Norfolk, North Island and Lakehurst.  Regular Navy personnel aboard were the commanding officer, Lt. Cmdr. Alfred E. Montgomery; the executive officer, the aerology officer and about five enlisted men.  The Marine guard consisted of Capt. Livingstone B. Stedman and 30 enlisted men.  Also in the Marine company was Lt. Richard C. Mangrum, later one of the heroes of Guadalcanal, the first pilot to land his [lane on the strip at Henderson Field.

            As Hutchinson remembered it, in a recorded interview 15 years later, there was only a single trunk telephone line connecting the station to the city.  The administration building was still the old white farm house, and the station doctor had his office there.  The dispensary was in one corner of the hangar.

         Hutchinson recollected that there were about 14 aircraft assigned to the station.  Six of them were O2C Curtis Helldivers.  The rest were primary training planes, with interchangeable wheels and floats allowing training for both land and seaplanes.

            There was one seaplane which was used as a weather plane for ascertaining weather aloft.  A range receiver was installed on it, but few pilots were well acquainted with its advantages.  Patrol planes were buoyed in the lake except when repairs or checks were needed, then beaching gear was used to drag them ashore.

            The pinch of the Great Depression bit deep at the station, and soon Hutchinson had the duties of executive officer, public works officer and communications officer piled on his plate, in addition to his tasks as aerologist.

The airfield, if that is what you wanted to call it, was a large grass field with no runways and no drainage.  Rain turned it into a soggy, unusable mess.

            Hutchinson scrounged through the available public works funds, buying cinders in Seattle in $50 lots.  He had them piled on the base until he had enough to make a landing strip.  Using a steam shovel he borrowed from the Navy yard in Bremerton, he spread the cinders into a narrow runway.  The natural characteristics of cinders gave his home-built strip good drainage, and soon Sand Point was not only serving Navy pilots, it was also an alternative landing strip for the commercial airlines.  There was no control tower, nor need for one.  Few airplanes were equipped to receive voice radio.  Planes were signaled to landing by lights.

            Reservists drilled one evening a week and flew every Sunday, regardless of the weather, since that was the only time they had for flying.  With poor facilities offered by the field at this time, and the lack of radio aids to navigation for poor weather, this was real pioneering.