Hoover Field - Operations and Ownership Changes

Operations and Ownership Changes

In June 1927, the new airmail contractor for the federal government refused to use Hoover Field any longer because it was so unsafe. Airmail service was transferred to nearby Bolling Field, a military airport. Hoover Field's location—bordered by highways, rivers, and federally owned land—also prevented its expansion to accommodate newer aircraft requiring longer runways.

At about the same time, Henry Berliner began leasing and later took majority ownership in Hoover Field. As Berliner secured his interest in the airport, a number of government officials and businessmen suggested that the United States Department of Agriculture sell its experimental agricultural fields to Hoover Field for expansion. But this plan was not acted on.

A fire at the field on July 3, 1928, destroyed eight planes and the hangar, causing $100,000 in damages ($1.275 million in 2010 inflation-adjusted dollars). Flights out of Hoover Field were suspended for 18 days. Berliner's finances were significantly damaged by the fire, and he sold his interest in Hoover Field to E.W. Robertson's Mount Vernon Airways on July 20, 1928. A few months later, on September 11, 1928, the first daily flights from Washington, D.C., to New York City began out of Hoover Field.

By November 1928, a Canadian company, International Airways, had taken over control of the airfield from Mount Vernon Airways. Despite its small size, three foreign flights per day left Hoover Field, and in the 18 months prior to December 1928 the airport saw more than 50,000 flights depart. In June 1928, it set an area record for sending 4,200 passengers aloft in a single month. But these statistics belied the very real dangers at the field. In 1928, a pilot and engineer were killed when their plane crashed during take-off. Later that year, a plane attempting to land at night struck a car parked on the field, injuring four.

In early 1929, a new holding company, Atlantic Seaboard Airways, was created to take over International Airways and its subsidiary aviation businesses. The owners of Atlantic Seaboard also owned Washington Airport (see below), and for a time the two fields were operated by the same company (although not merged). But on December 30, 1929, a group of investors led by R.H. Reiffen, chairman of the New Standard Aircraft Company, purchased Atlantic Seaboard Airways and took control of Hoover Field.

Safety at the airfield improved somewhat in mid-1932, after Arlington County commissioners revoked permits for the burning of trash at all landfills in the county—including the one next to Hoover Field, but not the one next to Washington Airport.