William Boeing
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William E. Boeing (October 1, 1881 - September 28, 1956) was the aviation pioneer who founded The Boeing Company.
He was born in Detroit, Michigan to a wealthy mining engineer who had made a fortune developing large low grade taconite iron ore deposits and who had a sideline as a timber merchant. William Boeing left Yale in 1903 to go into the lumber side of the business. He bought extensive timberlands around Gray's Harbor on the Pacific side of the Olympic Peninsula. He also bought into lumber operations.
While president of Greenwood Logging Company, Boeing who experimented with boat design travelled to Seattle, where during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, Boeing saw a manned flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with aircraft.
In 1916, Boeing went into business with George C. Westervelt as B & W and founded Pacific Aero Products. When America entered the First World War in April 1917, Boeing changed the name of Pacific Aero Products to Boeing Airplane Company and obtained orders from the United States Navy for 50 planes. At the end of the war, Boeing began to concentrate on commercial aircraft, secured contracts to supply airmail service and built a successful airmail operation.
In 1934, the United States government accused him of monopolistic practices. The Air Mail Act ordered him to break up his company into three separate entities: United Aircraft Company, Boeing Airplane Company, and United Air Lines.
Boeing retired from the aircraft industry in 1934. He spent the remainder of his years in property development and thoroughbred horse breeding. His thoroughbred farm northeast of Seattle was called Aldarra.
Boeing Airplane, though a major manufacturer in a fragmented industry, did not really take off until the beginning of World War II.
References
- Carl Cleveland, Boeing Trivia, (Seattle: CMC Books, 1989)
- Harold Mansfield, Vision: A Saga of the Sky (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1956)
- Robert Serling, Legend & Legacy: The Story of Boeing and Its People (New York: St. Martins Press, 1992)de:William Edward Boeing
es:William E. Boeing it:William Boeing ja:ウィリアム・ボーイング pl:William Edward Boeing ru:Боинг, Вильям Эдвард zh:威廉·爱德华·波音