McGee Airways was an American airline, founded in
Anchorage, Alaska, in 1932 by
Linious "Mac" McGee. Starting with a single three seat
Stinson airplane, the company grew and the fleet of aircraft expanded to seven Stinsons.
Although McGee was an excellent manager, there were two major competitors in Anchorage:
Star Air Service and
Woodley Airways Woodley Airways was a carrier based in Anchorage, Alaska, United States. The airline was founded in 1932 by Art Woodley (died 30 May 1990, aged 84).
Woodley Airways operated a flight from Anchorage to Nome. It was a one plane one pilot operation. ...
. There was not enough business to support the three companies, and they were all struggling financially. In 1937 McGee sold the company to Star Air Service.
When Mac McGee sold the company, he began working several mining claims, but was called back to manage Star Air Service on several occasions while they continued to struggle financially. He left the airline business for the last time in 1937 when he arranged to sell Star Air Service to a new group of investors who hoped to make the company a major player in the Alaska airline business.
McGee Airways was the original
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
air service that, through a long series of mergers and acquisitions ultimately became
Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines is a major American airline headquartered in SeaTac, Washington, within the Seattle metropolitan area. It is the sixth largest airline in North America when measured by fleet size, scheduled passengers carried, and the num ...
in 1944.
History
McGee came to Alaska as a stowaway in 1929.
He worked as a miner, truck driver,
dishwasher and fur trader. In 1931 he partnered with
Harvey W. Barnhill to form
Barnhill & McGee Airways with a three-seat Stinson SM8A which they had purchased from
Varney Airlines
Varney Air Lines was an airline company that started service on April 6, 1926, as an air-mail carrier. Formed by Walter Varney, the airline was based in Boise, Idaho, United States. The airline is one of the predecessors of United Airlines.
H ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
.
In 1932 McGee bought Barnhill’s interest and dissolved the company.
McGee obtained a bank loan and purchased a second Stinson airplane and hired half-brother Estol Call to bring it to Anchorage, where he founded McGee Airways.
Operations
![McGeeStinson01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/McGeeStinson01.jpg)
Although McGee learned to fly he did not like flying. He preferred to hire pilots and personally manage the company. He paid his pilots on commission based on the income they generated.
Originally the operation was completely un-scheduled.
They flew trappers, hunters, tourists, salesmen, sport fishermen and commercial fishermen to destinations throughout the
Alaska Territory
The Territory of Alaska or Alaska Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from August 24, 1912, until Alaska was granted statehood on January 3, 1959. The territory was previously Russian America, 1784–1867; the ...
, going from place to place delivering and picking up cargo and passengers until returning to home base in Anchorage.
The pilots collected cash for the flights and settled with McGee each time they returned to Anchorage.
The
Interior Department
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministry ...
paid to have indigenous natives, who were wards of the government, flown to hospitals for medical care.
The airplanes had no radios or navigational instruments.
Only a very few of the large cities had landing fields.
In summer the planes were equipped with pontoons for landing on lakes and rivers.
Lake Spenard was the Anchorage pontoon base.
In winter the planes were converted to skis, landing on ice and snow covered waterways or clearings. Winter home base was
Merrill Field
Merrill Field is a public-use general aviation airport located one mile (1.6 km) east of downtown Anchorage in the U.S. state of Alaska. The airport is owned by Municipality of Anchorage. It opened in 1930 as Anchorage Aviation Field and w ...
in Anchorage.
![McGeeStinson02](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/32/McGeeStinson02.jpg)
In the fall of 1934 McGee Airways obtained the first airmail contract to deliver mail to the
Bristol Bay area of southwest
Alaska
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
.
He hired Roy Dickson to fly the new mail route. Dickson had brought a
B-1 Ryan airplane to Alaska in March, 1934, and flew the summer mining season for Alaska Exploration & Mining Company out of
Cantwell. McGee approached him in the Parsons Hotel in Anchorage with a proposition. "It's a new project, never been tried before, do you want to try it?" Dickson was anxious to get on McGee's payroll so he could bring his family to Alaska from the states. His Ryan was in need of an overhaul, and he had been paid mostly in company stock rather than cash for his summer's work. He accepted McGee's offer, sold the Ryan to Bowman Airways, and sent for his family.
Dickson flew the mail route until late 1935, when he founded his own company Bering Sea Airways.
The new air mail delivery flight took a minimum of three days with deliveries to
Iliamna Lake
Iliamna Lake or Lake Iliamna (Yup'ik: ''Nanvarpak''; Dena'ina Athabascan: ''Nila Vena'') is a lake in southwest Alaska, at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula, between Kvichak Bay and Cook Inlet, about west of Seldovia, Alaska. It shares a n ...
,
Naknek
Naknek ( esu, Nakniq) is a census-designated place located in and the borough seat of Bristol Bay Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. As of the 2020 census, the population of the CDP was 470, down from 544 in 2010.
Naknek is located on the no ...
,
Egegik and
Ugashik, the southernmost village on the run, then returning with deliveries to
Nushagak,
Dillingham, another stop at Iliamna Lake and back to Anchorage.
This new connection to the "outside world" allowed remote villagers to obtain products previously unavailable. The pilots always had a shopping list when they returned to Anchorage.
Previously mail had been delivered by steamships in the summer and dog teams in winter.
In winter months from October 1 until May 1 only letters, cards, packages of seeds weighing less than a pound, and newspapers going
to libraries or newspaper publishers were carried. Packages were held in
Seattle
Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...
until the summer months when they could be taken in by boat.
McGee was a workaholic, working seven days a week.
He was also known as an honest businessman, and shrewd manager.
He pioneered the concept of having a fleet of identical aircraft so that parts would be interchangeable.
In order to make a profit, he loaded his planes with all they could carry, causing the
Department of Commerce aircraft inspector to frequently cite the company for overloading aircraft.
McGee Airways had two significant competitors in Anchorage, Woodley Airways and
Star Air Service.
Woodley Airways was founded by
"Art" Woodley in 1932,
and in April 1932, three young Seattle pilots Charlie Ruttan, Steve Mills and Jack Waterworth founded Star Air Service,
planning to offer flight instruction and charter service.
Dissolution
By the winter of 1934, it was apparent that there was not enough business to support three air services in Anchorage with the surplus of airplanes and an economy suffering from the
Great Depression. McGee was also anxious to work some mining claims he had staked. Star Air Service acquired McGee Airways in 1934 for $50,000.
McGee stipulated that if not paid on time, he would return and manage the operation until receiving his money.
The acquisition made Star Air Service the largest airline operation in Alaska. By 1936 it had a fleet of 22 planes and a gross annual income of $190,000.
But Star's pilot owner/managers were a restless bunch and changes in the front office were common. McGee returned to manage the company twice, and in 1937, he bought his way back into the airline and finally sold the company to a new group of investors,
ending his involvement in the airline business. After working his mining operations for a number of years,
McGee retired to the "lower 48" and died in
Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
, in 1988
at age 91.
Aircraft
McGee Airways only operated Stinson airplanes.
*3 Stinson S Junior
*Stinson SM-1E
*Stinson SM-1F
*Stinson SM-7A
*Stinson SM-8A
*Stinson SR-5
Pilots
The bush pilots who flew in the 1930s were a most important element in the development of air services in Alaska, and indeed in the development of Alaska itself. They flew single engine aircraft all over the Territory, with no weather reports, no navigation aides, no radios in aircraft, not even good maps, and there were very few landing fields. The pilots took the risks and their contributions to the inhabitants of Alaska were of enormous importance.
The bush pilots who flew for McGee Airways were:
*Estol Call
*Roy S. Dickson (1901-1958)
*James M. "Jim" Dodson (1902-1969)
*Ed Fageros
*Don Glass (d.1943)
*Don H. Goodman (b. 1909)
*Gordon MacKenzie (1894-1963)
*John W. "Johnny" Moore (1907-1988)
*Kenneth W. "Kenny" Neese (1903-1944)
*Murrell Sasseen (1906-1974)
*Dan Victor (1901-1942)
*Oscar Winchell (1903-1987)
Further reading
* International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 29. St. James Press, 1999.
* Alaska Airlines: General Information and History, Seattle: Alaska Airlines, 1992.
* Alaska Airlines,
Archie Satterfield
Archie Satterfield (June 18, 1933 – November 21, 2011) was a Seattle-based author and journalist.
Satterfield was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks. He joined the American Navy in 1952 and later graduated with an English degree from the ...
(1981). The Alaska Airlines Story. (Anchorage, AK: Alaska Northwest Pub. Co., 207 p.). Alaska Airlines—History.
* Robert J. Serling, Character & Characters: The Spirit of Alaska Airlines (Seattle: Documentary Media LLC, 2008), 492 pp., hardback,
* Robert W. Stevens D.D.L. (1989). Alaskan Aviation History. (Des Moines, IA: Polynyas Press, 1095 pp., hardback 2 volume set).
* Pat Wachel (1967). Oscar Winchell Alaska’s Flying Cowboy. (Minneapolis, MN: T.S. Denison & Company, Inc., 210 pp., hardback). ASIN B0006BQWQE
See also
*
List of defunct airlines of the United States
A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also refer to:
People
* List (surname)
Organizations
* List College, an undergraduate division of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
* SC Germania List, German rugby unio ...
References
Bibliography
*Anchorage Centennial Commission Aviation Committee, "Honoring 100 ALASKA BUSH PILOTS".
Anchorage, Alaska, June 24, 1967
*
Archie Satterfield
Archie Satterfield (June 18, 1933 – November 21, 2011) was a Seattle-based author and journalist.
Satterfield was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks. He joined the American Navy in 1952 and later graduated with an English degree from the ...
, "The Alaska Airlines Story". Alaska Northwest Publishing Company,
Anchorage, Alaska, 1981.
*John P. Bagoy, "Legends & Legacies, Anchorage 1910-1935". 2001,
*Robert W. Stevens, "Alaskan Aviation History", Polynyas Press,
Des Moines, Washington
Des Moines ( ) is a city in King County, Washington, United States. The population was 32,888 as of the 2020 census. The city is located on the east shore of Puget Sound, near the center of the Seattle metropolitan area. It is bordered by th ...
, 1989,
*McLaren & Dickson, "Roy Dickson 1930s Alaska Bush Pilot", Plane Truth Publishing,
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...
, 2009.
External links
A diamond in the sky: Alaska Airlines celebrates 75 years of service above the clouds. Alaska Business Monthly
Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum Kipnotes
Kipnotes
History Link.org The Free Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, Alaska Airlines
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mcgee Airways
1932 establishments in Alaska
Airlines established in 1932
Airlines based in Alaska
Companies based in Anchorage, Alaska
Defunct airlines of the United States
Defunct companies based in Alaska
Alaska Air Group
Airlines disestablished in 1934
1934 disestablishments in Alaska
1934 mergers and acquisitions