Company Founder and Owner, President, Chairman of the Board Boeing, 1916-1934
__________________________________________________________
William E. Boeing left Yale University in 1903 to
take advantage of opportunities in the risky and
cyclical, but financially rewarding, Northwest
timber industry. That experience would serve him
well in aviation.
Under his guidance, a tiny airplane
manufacturing company grew into a huge
corporation of related industries. When post-
Depression legislation in 1934 mandated the
dispersion of the corporation, Boeing sold his
interests in the Boeing Airplane Co., but continued
to work on other business ventures.
He became one of America's most successful
breeders of thoroughbred horses. He never lost
his interest in aviation, and during World War II he
volunteered as a consultant to the company. He
lived until 1956, long enough to see the company
he started enter the jet age.
William E. Boeing was a private person, a
visionary, a perfectionist, and a stickler for the
facts. The wall of his outer office bore a placard
that read: "Years ago Hippocrates said: 1. There
obtained by accurate observation. 3. Deductions
are to be made only from facts. 4. Experience
has proved the truth of these rules."
According to his son, William Boeing,
Jr., Boeing was a fast and avid reader and
remembered everything he read. He was also a
perfectionist. While visiting his airplane building
shop at the Duwamish shipyard in 1916, Boeing
saw a set of improperly sawed spruce ribs. He
brushed them to the floor and walked all over
them until they were broken. A frayed aileron cable
caused him to remark, "I, for one, will close up
shop rather than send out work of this kind."
Fortuitous Beginnings:
Finding the "Good Luck" Ore
William E. Boeing was born in Detroit to Wilhelm
and Marie Boeing in 1881. His father, who arrived
in the United States in 1868, had come from
an old and well-to-do family in Hohenlimburg,
Germany, and had served a year in the German
army. He had a lust for adventure, however, and
left his family, emigrating to the United States
when he was 20 years old.
Wilhelm started work as a farm laborer
but soon joined forces with Karl Ortmann, a
lumberman and, ultimately, his father-in-law. Young
Wilhelm bought timberland, with its mineral rights,
in the Mesabi Range, built a large home, and
became the director of Peoples Savings Bank,
president of the Galvin Brass and Iron Works,
and a shareholder in the Standard Life Insurance
Company. He also bought land in Washington
State in the area now known as Ocean Shores
and timberland in the redwood forest in California.
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| William E. Boeing |
he had difficulty running compass lines on his
property. He was logging over the iron-ore range.
Fortunately, when he purchased timberlands he
kept the mineral rights also. There was low-grade
iron ore known as taconite near the surface, and
below that lay veins of high-quality ore.
Though
Young Boeing left Vevey after a year and continued
his schooling in public and private schools in the
United States. Between 1899 and 1902, he studied
at the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale but did not
graduate. Instead, in 1903 at age 22, William E. Boeing
left college, went west, and started his new life in Grays
Harbor, Washington, where he learned the logging
business on his own, starting with lands he had
inherited. Boeing bought more timberland, began to
add to the wealth he had inherited from his family,
and started to explore new frontiers by outfitting
expeditions to Alaska.
Wilhelm did not live to see the development
of those mining rights, his widow received the
benefits of the mineral rights, and upon her death
she left an estate of approximately $1 million to her
son, William E. Boeing.
Exploring New Frontiers:
Wilhelm Boeing died of influenza in 1890 when
he was only 42 years old. He left behind his wife,
Marie; 3-year-old Gretchen; 5-year-old Caroline;
and 8-year-old William Edward. Marie eventually
remarried and became Marie M. Owsley. Young
William, who biographers of the time say did not
get along with his stepfather, was sent to school
in Vevey, Switzerland, where he established an
outward correctness that remained with him
for the rest of his life. According to a note in the
Boeing Historical Archives, William visited his
father's ancestral home in Hohenlimburg some
years before World War I.
Building a Better Airplane:
He moved to Seattle in 1908 to establish the
Greenwood Timber Co. His first home in that city
was a genteel apartment-hotel on First Hill, but in
1909, he was elected a member of The Highlands,
a brand-new, exclusive residential suburb in the
Shoreline area north of town. In 1910, he bought the
Heath Shipyard on the Duwamish River to build a
yacht, named the Taconite — after the "good luck".
Three years later Boeing asked the architecture firm
of Bebb and Mendel to design his white-stucco,
red-roofed mansion in The Highlands.
By then, he was already enthralled with
airplanes. He attended an aviation meet in 1910
in Los Angeles, where he tried to get a ride on
one of the boxy biplanes but had no success.
In 1915, Thomas Hamilton, later founder of
Hamilton Metalplane Co. (acquired by Boeing in
1929), introduced Boeing to U.S. Navy Lieutenant
G. Conrad Westervelt.
Boeing and Westervelt
became close friends and when flier Terah
Maroney brought a Curtiss-type hydroplane to
Seattle later that year, the pair took turns riding
above Lake Washington.
Boeing told writer Harold Mansfield that
he sat beside Maroney on the front edge of the
lower muslin-covered wing and as the biplane
banked away from the lake, he saw the whole
landscape tilting up beside him like a flat picture
plate. After a few more sessions with Maroney,
Boeing and Westervelt decided they could build
a better airplane.
The Largest Aerospace Company in the
World is Born:
By 1915, Westervelt was exchanging information
with Jerome Hunsaker, who had established a wind
tunnel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At the same time, Boeing visited Herb Munter, an
exhibition flier who was preparing a plane for flights
over Seattle's Harbor Island, and asked him if the
public was interested in aviation. "Mostly they come
out to see you crash, Munter told him.
"At that time I was merely desirous of learning
to fly," Boeing later told writer Harold Crary. "After
making inquiries of various sources, I applied to
the Glenn L. Martin School in Los Angeles for
instruction," Boeing continued. "In August of that
year, I started a course under the tutelage of Floyd
Smith. On completing the course, I ordered for my
personal use a plane known as Model TA from the
Martin factory.
"The machine was delivered to me in October
of 1915, and, being convinced that there was a
definite future in aviation, I became interested in
the construction as well as the flying of aircraft.
Enlisting a group of technical assistants, less than
a dozen men in all, work was begun in designing
the first Boeing plane.
"At that time, our combined factory and
seaplane hangar were housed in a small building
on the shores of Lake Union, and it was from there
that I made the initial test flight of the first Boeing
plane." That was June 15, 1916. The seaplane/
biplane was the Bluebill, B&W Model 1 — the
initials stood for Boeing and Westervelt. It was
25.5 feet long and flew 900 feet. Thus, the largest
aerospace company in the world was born.
From War to Peace:
The Commercial Flying Boat
On July 15, 1916, Boeing incorporated Pacific Aero
Products and consolidated most of the fledgling
company's work at the Heath shipyard. Boeing
needed somewhere in Seattle to test his airplanes,
so he paid for the construction of a wind tunnel at
the University of Washington in exchange for the
university's establishment of a curriculum in the
new science of aeronautics.
On April 8, 1917, U.S. President Woodrow
Wilson declared war on Germany and on May
17, 1917, the company was renamed the Boeing
Airplane Company. William Boeing enrolled in
the U.S. Navy Reserve in July of that year. His
company began to build Navy trainers, the Boeing
Model C. Pontoons for the first two were built in
the University of Washington's shell house.
Boeing kept his office in the Hoge building
in downtown Seattle, while his plant managers
were on site at the shipyard. "It now behooves us
to devote our energies toward the development
of machines which will be used in peacetimes,"
he wrote to his cousin, Edward C. Gott, who
was running the factory when the war ended
November 11, 1918, while Boeing was in Chicago.
"In this connection the first logical opening will be
the development of a commercial flying boat."
Diversifying to Make Ends Meet:
Meanwhile his company struggled to make ends
meet. It made furniture, phonograph cases, and
fixtures for a corset company. To promote the idea
of commercial aviation, Boeing and pilot Eddie
Hubbard used Boeing's personal C-700 (a civilian
version of the Model C) to deliver 60 letters from
Vancouver to Seattle as part of the Canadian
Exposition. This was the first international airmail to
reach the United States.
The company then started to show a profit
from repairing military aircraft and building biplane
fighters designed by other companies. By 1921,
Copyright © 2016 Boeing. All rights reserved.
the company had reestablished itself and Boeing
had found himself a bride. That year, Boeing
brought his new wife, Bertha Potter Paschall, and
her two young sons from a previous marriage, to
his estate in Highland Hills. Later, another son,
William Boeing, Jr., was born to the couple.
Boeing continued to run his timber business
and was able to absorb details of both lumber and
airplane enterprises. Years later, he could recall
the description and topography of a parcel of land
and the species and quality of timber that it would
yield. He believed in details and told his managers
that many a wrong decision stemmed from a detail
overlooked or incorrectly interpreted.
Air-cooled engine wins the bid:
Nonetheless, he demonstrated an unerring ability
to look at the big picture. He knew the trees, but
could grasp the importance of the forest. His
decision to use air-cooled engines rather than the
traditional water-cooled engines on the Model 40A
mailplane, which was competing for the Chicago
to San Francisco airmail route, allowed him to win
the bid. The contract required that Boeing have 26
airplanes in operation by July 1, 1927.
Boeing had to underwrite a $500,000 bond
with his own money to secure the company's
performance on the airmail contract. Bertha
Boeing was asked to launch the first Model
40A mailplane but was told that, because of
Prohibition, no champagne was allowed on Crissy
Field in San Francisco. She objected and a legend
was born. In one version, she christened the
plane with orange juice and soda but never knew
the difference. In another, she was given special
permission to use real champagne. In either
case, this started the company in the business
of air transportation and the mass production of
commercial air transports.
In 1928, Boeing told an interviewer: "It is a
matter of great pride and satisfaction to me to
realize that within the short space of 12 years,
an infant company with a personnel of less than
a dozen men, has grown to be the largest plant
in America, devoted solely to the manufacture
of aircraft, and at the present time employingapproximately 1,000 men."
On February 1, 1929, Boeing Airplane and
Transport Corporation became United Aircraft
and Transport Corp. and included several airlines,
aircraft manufacturers, engine and propeller
manufacturers, and a school for pilots and
maintenance personnel in California.
to look at the big picture. He knew the trees, but
could grasp the importance of the forest. His
decision to use air-cooled engines rather than the
traditional water-cooled engines on the Model 40A
mailplane, which was competing for the Chicago
to San Francisco airmail route, allowed him to win
the bid. The contract required that Boeing have 26
airplanes in operation by July 1, 1927.
Boeing had to underwrite a $500,000 bond
with his own money to secure the company's
performance on the airmail contract. Bertha
Boeing was asked to launch the first Model
40A mailplane but was told that, because of
Prohibition, no champagne was allowed on Crissy
Field in San Francisco. She objected and a legend
was born. In one version, she christened the
plane with orange juice and soda but never knew
the difference. In another, she was given special
permission to use real champagne. In either
case, this started the company in the business
of air transportation and the mass production of
commercial air transports.
In 1928, Boeing told an interviewer: "It is a
matter of great pride and satisfaction to me to
realize that within the short space of 12 years,
an infant company with a personnel of less than
a dozen men, has grown to be the largest plant
in America, devoted solely to the manufacture
of aircraft, and at the present time employingapproximately 1,000 men."
On February 1, 1929, Boeing Airplane and
Transport Corporation became United Aircraft
and Transport Corp. and included several airlines,
aircraft manufacturers, engine and propeller
manufacturers, and a school for pilots and
maintenance personnel in California.
The Taconite:
Boeing was a member of a yacht club in Vancouver,
B.C., and in 1929 bought Vancouver boatbuilders
Hoffar-Beeching Co., intending to build flying boats
there. When the Great Depression hit later that year,
Boeing kept the company alive by paying $421,000
for the construction of the second Taconite — an
extremely luxurious 125-foot Burmese teak yacht —
as a gift for Bertha.
In 1934, the Government enacted antitrust
laws and United Aircraft and Transport Corp. was
split into different enterprises. Boeing resigned as
chairman and sold his stock. On June 20, 1934,
he was awarded the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for
aeronautical achievement.
At the award ceremony in San Francisco,
Boeing remarked: "Now that I am retiring from
active service in aircraft manufacturing and air
transportation, to be so greatly honored as to be
recipient of the Daniel Guggenheim Medal is a
real climax of my life. As the past years devoted
to aircraft activities have been filled with real
romance, the many forward projects now in the
making will continue to keep me on the sidelines
as a keen and interested observer."
B.C., and in 1929 bought Vancouver boatbuilders
Hoffar-Beeching Co., intending to build flying boats
there. When the Great Depression hit later that year,
Boeing kept the company alive by paying $421,000
for the construction of the second Taconite — an
extremely luxurious 125-foot Burmese teak yacht —
as a gift for Bertha.
In 1934, the Government enacted antitrust
laws and United Aircraft and Transport Corp. was
split into different enterprises. Boeing resigned as
chairman and sold his stock. On June 20, 1934,
he was awarded the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for
aeronautical achievement.
At the award ceremony in San Francisco,
Boeing remarked: "Now that I am retiring from
active service in aircraft manufacturing and air
transportation, to be so greatly honored as to be
recipient of the Daniel Guggenheim Medal is a
real climax of my life. As the past years devoted
to aircraft activities have been filled with real
romance, the many forward projects now in the
making will continue to keep me on the sidelines
as a keen and interested observer."
A legacy of perfectionism and high standards:
Boeing continued in the timber business until
about 1954 and made a variety of investments.
Around 1937, he began to breed racehorses and
by March 1938 had accumulated a stable of 40
thoroughbred horses in Walnut Creek, California,
and had purchased the contract of famous jockey
Basil James. That year the Boeing stable was fifth
in the United States for purses won.
In the real estate business, Boeing's interests
included the development of the Blue Ridge
subdivision north of Seattle that in 1936 included
a clubhouse, tennis courts, an archery range,
and a playfield. Every summer, Boeing and family
cruised aboard the Taconite, often as far north as
Alaska. Boeing, who always loved new machinery,
made sure that the Taconite had the most modern
equipment as it became available.
She was the first civilian vessel to have two-way radio —
developed by Boeing's brother-in-law, Thorpe
Hiscock, for use on Boeing mailplanes. After
World War II, she was the first civilian vessel to
have radar. The Taconite was still taking notables
on cruises in 1999, and wherever she went she
symbolized the Boeing legacy of perfectionism,
attention to detail, and high standards.
Boeing bought a Douglas-built Dolphin
amphibian aircraft and hired a pilot to use the
Dolphin to fly him from Taconite landings on the
Alaskan coast for fishing trips on remote lakes
inland. Boeing took delivery of the Dolphin off
the coast of Canada and timed its climb with
a stopwatch to make sure it met performance
specifications. During the late 1930s, Boeing
became an expert on fishing and helped originate
the polar-bear fly used for salmon fishing.
about 1954 and made a variety of investments.
Around 1937, he began to breed racehorses and
by March 1938 had accumulated a stable of 40
thoroughbred horses in Walnut Creek, California,
and had purchased the contract of famous jockey
Basil James. That year the Boeing stable was fifth
in the United States for purses won.
In the real estate business, Boeing's interests
included the development of the Blue Ridge
subdivision north of Seattle that in 1936 included
a clubhouse, tennis courts, an archery range,
and a playfield. Every summer, Boeing and family
cruised aboard the Taconite, often as far north as
Alaska. Boeing, who always loved new machinery,
made sure that the Taconite had the most modern
equipment as it became available.
She was the first civilian vessel to have two-way radio —
developed by Boeing's brother-in-law, Thorpe
Hiscock, for use on Boeing mailplanes. After
World War II, she was the first civilian vessel to
have radar. The Taconite was still taking notables
on cruises in 1999, and wherever she went she
symbolized the Boeing legacy of perfectionism,
attention to detail, and high standards.
Boeing bought a Douglas-built Dolphin
amphibian aircraft and hired a pilot to use the
Dolphin to fly him from Taconite landings on the
Alaskan coast for fishing trips on remote lakes
inland. Boeing took delivery of the Dolphin off
the coast of Canada and timed its climb with
a stopwatch to make sure it met performance
specifications. During the late 1930s, Boeing
became an expert on fishing and helped originate
the polar-bear fly used for salmon fishing.
The Airplane of Tomorrow is Christened:
Boeing kept his promise to stay in touch with
friends and colleagues at his old company. He
returned to work as an advisor during World War
II when the Boeing Airplane Company began to
build warplanes, and the enterprises that had been
split following the Depression joined forces to
defend the country.
In 1942, Boeing donated his Highland Hills
mansion to Children's Orthopedic Hospital and
moved to the 500-acre Aldarra Farm near Fall City.
The mansion was subsequently sold to raise funds
for the hospital, and in 1988 was placed on both
the National and Washington State Registers of
Historic Places.
Boeing then added animal husbandry to his
activities. At first, Boeing raised purebred Herefords
on Aldarra, but later switched to Black Angus
cattle and sheep. He is credited with having done
much to improve the standards of registered beef
stock throughout the Northwest. Aldarra became
completely mechanized. During the 1950s Boeing
built the state's only noncommercial grass dehydrating
plant so the cattle had prime pasture all year round.
Boeing personally inspected every acre of his
land, striding briskly and swinging a cane he did not
need, and followed by a Pekingese named General
Motors. When his health began to fail in 1954, he
began to tour by jeep. On May 15, 1954, he and
Bertha returned to The Boeing Company again for
the Dash-80 rollout and the birth of the jet era. This
time Bertha was able to use real champagne. "I
christen thee the airplane of tomorrow, the Boeing
Jet Stratoliner and Stratotanker," she proclaimed.
She was right; this was the jet that would change the
face of aviation worldwide. It would emerge as the
707, the first of the famous Boeing family of jetliners.
William E.
Boeing died September 28, 1956,
aboard the Taconite. He remained until the end an
active and interested participant in the world around
him. He did not have a formal funeral, and his family
scattered his ashes into the sea off the coast of
British Columbia where he had spent so many
months aboard the Taconite.
On December 15, 1966, Bill Boeing was
memorialized in the Aviation Hall of Fame in
Dayton, Ohio, "for outstanding contributions
to aviation by his successful organization of a
network of airline routes and the production of
vitally important military and commercial aircraft."
Bertha Boeing died on June 27, 1977, at home
at the Aldarra Farm. In May 2001, half the estate
was designated as the Aldarra Golf Course.
The remainder of the land had been previously sold for
residential development.
Boeing kept his promise to stay in touch with
friends and colleagues at his old company. He
returned to work as an advisor during World War
II when the Boeing Airplane Company began to
build warplanes, and the enterprises that had been
split following the Depression joined forces to
defend the country.
In 1942, Boeing donated his Highland Hills
mansion to Children's Orthopedic Hospital and
moved to the 500-acre Aldarra Farm near Fall City.
The mansion was subsequently sold to raise funds
for the hospital, and in 1988 was placed on both
the National and Washington State Registers of
Historic Places.
Boeing then added animal husbandry to his
activities. At first, Boeing raised purebred Herefords
on Aldarra, but later switched to Black Angus
cattle and sheep. He is credited with having done
much to improve the standards of registered beef
stock throughout the Northwest. Aldarra became
completely mechanized. During the 1950s Boeing
built the state's only noncommercial grass dehydrating
plant so the cattle had prime pasture all year round.
Boeing personally inspected every acre of his
land, striding briskly and swinging a cane he did not
need, and followed by a Pekingese named General
Motors. When his health began to fail in 1954, he
began to tour by jeep. On May 15, 1954, he and
Bertha returned to The Boeing Company again for
the Dash-80 rollout and the birth of the jet era. This
time Bertha was able to use real champagne. "I
christen thee the airplane of tomorrow, the Boeing
Jet Stratoliner and Stratotanker," she proclaimed.
She was right; this was the jet that would change the
face of aviation worldwide. It would emerge as the
707, the first of the famous Boeing family of jetliners.
William E.
Boeing died September 28, 1956,
aboard the Taconite. He remained until the end an
active and interested participant in the world around
him. He did not have a formal funeral, and his family
scattered his ashes into the sea off the coast of
British Columbia where he had spent so many
months aboard the Taconite.
On December 15, 1966, Bill Boeing was
memorialized in the Aviation Hall of Fame in
Dayton, Ohio, "for outstanding contributions
to aviation by his successful organization of a
network of airline routes and the production of
vitally important military and commercial aircraft."
Bertha Boeing died on June 27, 1977, at home
at the Aldarra Farm. In May 2001, half the estate
was designated as the Aldarra Golf Course.
The remainder of the land had been previously sold for
residential development.
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Copyright © 2016 Boeing. All rights reserved.
