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McConnell AFB Administration Building
The accomplishments of Amelia Earhart in the field of aviation were many. She is best remembered as the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic, May 20-21, 1932. For this achievement Vice President Charles Curtis awarded her the Distinguished Flying Cross on July 29, 1932. Some of her other achievements included: setting the women's altitude record, the women's speed record, the first person to fly solo from Honolulu, Hawaii to Oakland, California, and she was the first woman to make a solo round trip of the United States. On July 2, 1937, she and her navigator, Fred Noonan, while on a round-the-world flight, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.
The house where Amelia Earhart was born and raised was built in 1861 by her grandfather, Judge Alfred G. Otis, in Atchison, Kansas. Amelia was born in the southwest bedroom on the second floor. Although there is some disagreement as to the date of her birth, records of the Trinity Episcopal Church of Atchison indicate the date was July 24, 1897. Her father, Edwin Stanton Earhart, was a lawyer whose position as claims agent for a railroad required him to travel a great deal. Consequently Amelia and her sister Muriel stayed with their grandparents much of the time. In one of her books Amelia mentioned that she had attended grammar school in Atchison until the eighth grade and had skipped two grades in the process. Even though she lived in many different cities, Amelia considered Atchison her hometown. It is probable that she spent more time in the house she was born in, called the Otis House, than anywhere else. The Amelia Earhart Birthplace represents one of the few remaining tangible associations with this famous aviation pilot.
The house faces east and overlooks the Missouri River from the crest of a bluff. The front portion of the house is two stories high and constructed of wood and horizontal lap siding; the rear portion is one story and is constructed of brick masonry. A one-story, flat-roofed frame porch runs the length of the east front and is supported by six hexagonal columns, of which the four center ones are paired. The roof is a double pitch gable with an intersecting gable on the east side. Most window openings have a semicircular arched head.
The Amelia Earhart Birthplace is located on 223 North Terrace St., in Atchison, Kansas. The museum is open Monday-Friday 9:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday 10:00am to 4:00pm and Sunday 1:00pm to 4:00pm; on holidays by appointment. There is a fee for admission. Please call 913-367-4217 or visit the museum's website for information. Another valuable online source of information on Amelia Earhart are the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers at Purdue University.
Construction of the Administrative Building at McConnell Air Force Base, originally Wichita's Municipal Airport terminal, began on June 28, 1930. On that date city officials and local aviation leaders participated in groundbreaking ceremonies designed to make Wichita, Kansas, a center of the aviation industry and a stopping place for passenger and airmail service. Wichita already had connections with aviation history; the Swallow Company began the first commercial aircraft manufacturing in Wichita from 1919 to 1920. By 1929 Wichita had 11 firms engaged in aircraft manufacturing plus a wide variety of support industries. By that time some 25 percent of the aircraft in use in the country were made in Wichita. To further their position in the aviation industry, it was necessary for Wichita to have an airport with refueling capabilities, maintenance hangars and administrative buildings to handle passengers, and 640 acres were purchased for this purpose by the city park board in 1928. By the spring of 1929 Wichita's Municipal Airport was well on its way to becoming a top grade airfield.
Because of financial difficulties during the Great Depression, the terminal building for the airport was not completed until 1935. Dedication ceremonies were held March 31, with an estimated crowd size of 10,000 to 15,000. Rain did not damper an abbreviated air show, and speeches were held to dedicate the building. Wichita's municipal airport was cited over and over again as an exemplary complex. Charles Lindbergh stated in 1929 during one of his visits to Wichita that there was no reason "why Wichita should not continue to be one of the most widely known of air centers." In 1936 Captain James B. Gordon, procurement planning representative of the material division of the U.S. Army Air Corps, called Wichita's airport the best in the country. During World War II the War Production Board used part of the facility. In December of 1944 Wichita's airplane factories were reported to have constructed 22,334 airplanes and 750 gliders. The terminal building consists of a central three-story portion built from 1930 to 1935 with flanking two-story wings built in 1942 and 1943. Typical of the Art Deco style are broad, flat wall surfaces broken by step-backs that emphasize doors, windows and the progression from one section of the building to another. Art Deco elements also include the stepped corners of windows, the inset stepped and faceted stones at the corners of the end bays and in the panels of stylized airplanes surrounded by chevron patterns. Some outstanding decorative features of the building surround the entrance; three large cast stone window spandrels in the three central bays that depict an eagle with spread wings superimposed over a stylized pattern of airplanes, and a large cast stone mural that runs the entire length of the three recessed bays. The three stone panels reflect both the nationalism of the 1930s and the stylization of Art Deco. The large panel was designed by L. W. Clapp, a prominent public figure in Wichita who was instrumental in bringing the aviation industry to the city. The color in the mural was obtained by crushing colored bottles in the cast stone mixture. The control tower is situated at the western end of the original building. Originally four stories tall, it had a glass-enclosed fifth story added in 1940.
The terminal building was managed by the city park department from the time of its construction until the municipal airport was sold to the Federal government in 1951. The base was known as Wichita Air Force Base until the name was changed to McConnell Air Force Base in honor of two Wichita brothers who were B-24 pilots in World War II. From 1951 to 1958 the facility was used primarily for testing SAC B-47 crews. The Boeing Aircraft Company had a lease on part of the building from 1956 to 1963 and used it for engineering, management and production of the B-52 aircraft. From 1963 to 1971 it was used by the Tactical Air Command for training F-105 crews. After that it served as the administrative center for personnel and transportation at McConnell. The control tower was used for training tower personnel. Today the Administrative Building houses the Kansas Aviation Museum, which documents the history of flight in Kansas from the earliest days to contemporary times and beyond.
The Administration Building is located at the corner of 31st St. South and George Washington Blvd. near the West Gate of the base in Wichita, Kansas. It is now the Kansas Aviation Museum, open Tuesday-Friday, 9:00am to 4:00pm, Saturday, 1:00pm to 5:00pm, closed Sunday and Monday. There is a fee for admission. For further information please call 316-683-9242 or visit the museum's website.
Sources: U.S. government, public domain information from Aviation: From Sand Dunes to Sonic Booms - National Register of Historic Places