In 1919, the southeast corner of Snelling and Larpenteur Avenues in what was then Rose Township changed from a farm field into Curtiss Northwest Airport, the first major airport in Minnesota and for a brief time the center of aviation in the state, where people could buy airplanes, learn to fly, and have aircraft serviced and repaired, while summer Sunday air shows drew hundreds and sometimes thousands of spectators. Phoebe Fairgrave and Vernon Omlie first teamed up there in 1921, when Fairgrave made a world-record 15,2000-foot parachute jump with Omlie at the controls; they later left St. Paul to barnstorm, married, and Fairgrave became the first woman to earn a Transport Pilot's License, won several national air races, and with Omlie helped establish the first airport in the mid-South. Bill Kidder, a former real estate salesman, learned to fly at a Curtiss Company flight school in Newport News, Virginia, entered aviation after World War I by acquiring a trainload of second-hand Curtiss Jenny biplanes for pennies on the dollar, and through his Curtiss contract held exclusive rights to represent the company in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, making him a pivotal figure in the shift from barnstorming to commercial aviation. Charles "Speed" Holman, a noted barnstormer and Northwest Airway's first pilot, promoted aviation across the region and in 1924 had Curtiss Northwest mechanics prepare his Thomas-Morse Scout biplane for the National Air Race in Dayton, Ohio, where he finished second; St. Paul's downtown airport was later named for him. Aviation pioneer Glen Curtiss, a rival of the Wright Brothers, became the first person to fly an airplane in Minnesota on June 23, 1910, when 12,000 people watched him take off from the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, fly to Lake Johanna and back, and remain airborne for 10 minutes, and by 1916 he led the world's largest aviation company, which established plane dealerships across the United States, including one at this site.
