Walter Varney

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Template:Sections Walter Varney was the founder of Varney Airlines, based in Boise, Idaho. The company is the root of what became United Airlines. Varney Airlines was founded in 1926 as an air-mail service. Its first flight was from Pasco, Washington to Elko, Nevada, on April 6. Back on April 6th, 1926 Walter Varney’s fledgling Airline flew the first sacks of airmail from Pasco, Washington. That air freight contract with the U.S. Postal Service grew into the birth of one of the world’s biggest airlines.

“The Boise Airport at that time was located on the Boise State campus, that was a special day in terms of Transportation because it marks the birth of United Airlines,” said United Airlines Archivist Roni Adams.

World War I established a military use for airplanes. But after the war, the country began to look at commercial enterprises. The United States had great fleets of airplanes with hundreds of ex GI pilots with nothing to do. Many came home and bought surplus airplanes from the scrap heaps for as little as a $100 dollars and made a meager living barnstorming across the country

In May 1918, the U.S. Post Office established the first overnight airmail route between New York City and Washington, D.C. By 1920, service had expanded to Chicago, and the post office was beginning to think in terms of transcontinental routes. Airmail delivery would be accomplished in much the same way as the old Pony Express worked — a series of shorter hops across the country.

Given its position as a crossroads and transportation center dating back to the Oregon Trail days, Boise was a natural choice for one of the new airmail stations.

The inaugural flight of the transcontinental airmail system took place on Sept. 8, 1920. A pilot took off from Hazelhurst Field, N.J., early that day, and after a series of relays, the mail reached Salt Lake City by 5:03 that afternoon. It took three more days before the first airmail reached San Francisco.

By the mid 1920s, the Post Office airmail flew 2.5 million miles and delivered 14 million letters. But the government didn’t want to continue airmail service on its own. Traditionally they had used private companies for the shipment of mail. So when the feasibility of airmail was ironed out, and landing strips became Airports, the government moved to transfer airmail service to the private sector with competitive bids.

The legislative push for the move came in 1925 with the Contract Air Mail Act. Winners of the initial five contracts were National Air Transport, Varney Air Lines, Western Air Express, Colonial Air Transport, and Robertson Aircraft Corporation.

“Walter T. Varney got his contract for airmail service called Contract Airmail 5, better known as CAM 5 and this particular mail route was the Pasco to Boise, to Elko, so the first airmail service started in Pasco, Washington by Varney Airlines,” said Adams.

The government had awarded the air mail contract to Varney after he submitted the only bid for the route. “He figured that no one else would bid on it because it was too dangerous,” said Adams.

Varney was well known for his California flying school and air-taxi service. His friends and colleagues thought he was crazy coming to Boise and taking on this route. They thought there wasn’t much money to be made between the three ‘cow-towns.’

On April 6, 1926 held such great promise that Idaho Senator William Borah came out from Washington for the ceremony. He joined Governor C.C. Moore and Boise Mayor E.G. Eagleson and a thousand screaming people because they knew that air freight meant new commerce dollars and growth. Varney Airlines represented an aerial port with new jobs and notoriety from air freight company.

A few months before the Mayor and Boise City Council got wind of a new airmail route proposed in the Northwest and decided to build the first municipal airport on the old Booth tract of land along the river. The American Legion helped out by clearing the landing strip and building the runways. The city furnished tractors, trucks and horses, while most of the work was completed by the members of the Legion.

Pilot Leon Cuddeback started the day in the early dawn hours in Pasco, Washington. Between 4,000 and 6,000 cheering people sent the pilot off with 207 pounds of mail, Cuddeback cautiously launched the loaded Curtis Swallow bi-plane, which sported a small underpowered water-cooled engine with a top speed of 90 miles per hour.

In unsettled weather he few southeast across the Western Oregon desert, over Hells Canyon, then Caldwell to Boise. On the ground the state capitol was awash in excitement. A parade got underway just before 9-am with a thousand people marching from 13th and Main to the airport. Stunt flyers performed over the airstrip just before the Varney biplane appeared from the west. Flying just over four hours Cuddeback landed in Boise to the cheering crowd at 10:10 on that brisk spring morning.

Cuddeback taxied down the dusty airstrip; he cut the engine then reached into the front seat of the biplane and handed the first sack of mail to Post Master L.W. Thrailkill. Thrailkill had the vision that brought Boise into the aerial age. He heard about the proposed Northwest route and Varney’s plan and quickly drew up a petition and got signatures from three dozen postmasters from the surrounding towns and Boise joined air age.

Cuddeback uneasily posed for a few photos with the dignitaries, ground crews fueled the plane, he enjoyed a cup of coffee and a sandwich and then headed for Elko. If he wasn’t worried about the next leg of the journey he should have. Erratic winds, wild spring weather and uncharted skies awaited him. Varney's flight was significant because for the first time this Northwest air route connected the country by air, drastically cutting coast to coast mail delivery.

Contract Air Mail routes were bid on across the country, all the easy routes went early and for a lot of money. The Pasco to Boise to Elko route was the least appealing because the 460 mile ran "from nowhere to nowhere" over the uncharted and barren high desert to treacherous snow-capped mountains.

The legislative push for the airmail routes was the 1925 Contract Air Mail Act, also called the Kelly Act. Winners of the initial five contracts were National Air Transport, Varney Air Lines, Western Air Express, Colonial Air Transport, and Robertson Aircraft Corporation.

National and Varney later became the heart and soul of United Airlines they teamed with the Boeing Airplane Company and Pratt & Whitney. Western would merge with Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT), another Curtiss subsidiary formed Transcontinental and Western Air.

“The companies didn’t merge all at once, they merged along the way,” said Roni Adams. “Like Boeing air transport absorbing Pacific air transport, and so on. But the four were Boeing Air transport, Pacific air transport, National Air Transport and Varney Airlines.”

The Post Office paid private operators handsomely to transport the mail, and by the pound. For the first time in history there was real money to be made flying airplanes. Air freight and commercial aviation in the United States was born and Boise had a hand in that.

There were no radios and few beacons on the ground to light the way, night flight increased the risk of what was already a dangerous job. Within the first three years of airmail service, 19 of the Post Office's original 40 pilots died in crashes, Varney’s route also saw its share of crashes the first coming on the inaugural flight.

Cuddeback’s flight was uneventful and he landed safely in Elko. There he handed the mail over to Pilot Franklin Rose, he loaded up for the backleg to Pasco. He revved up the puny engine. The bi-wing Curtiss Swallow bounced slowly down the runway and reluctantly picked up speed. Rose coaxed a little more speed out of the engine and pulled back on the stick. The plane was finally in the air with its cargo of several mail sacks.

There was logic behind this difficult route. Pasco was a rail center, halfway between Portland, Seattle, and Spokane. Mail trains leaving those cities in the evening arrived in Pasco early the next morning. Mail could be transferred to and from the biplanes cutting coast to coast delivery by days.

Rose noticed the menacing dark clouds coming in from the west and tried to miss them but they closed in too fast. His plane was suddenly surrounded by buffeting winds and sheets of blinding rain, and the flash of lightning. Rose tried to get below the clouds but the engine sputtered and cut out. He tried to bring the Swallow down as gently as possible but his wheel caught in the sage brush and caused the plane to nose over. He was miles from anywhere.

Unhurt, except for a couple of bruises, he climbed down to look over the situation. He gathered up what he could carry and headed out, soon two cowboys rode up. They accused Rose of being a Prohibition agent spying on them. Rose had to walk out on his own, two days later he found a ranch house with a phone and called Elko and told them he was fine.

The victory celebration in Elko was postponed for 24 hours while Varney tried to locate the missing pilot when he turned up it was back to the business of flying mail.

It was during this decade, on May 20, 1927, that young Charles Lindbergh aroused the world's imagination with his courageous solo flight across the Atlantic in his tiny Ryan M-1 monoplane. Later that summer on September 4, 1927 Lindbergh landed his "Spirit of St. Louis" in Boise to a huge crowd.

Varney soon added Salt Lake City and took on passengers and later merged with Boeing to form United Airlines, United started jet service to Boise on October 26, 1964 and is the only airline to serve Boise continuously since 1933. With the Beeson terminal remodeling at the airport the last Varney building was torn down in 2002. April 6th, 2006 marks United Airlines 80th birthday. Retired Brigadier General Franklin Rose died in 1980. --by Jake Putnam

(Thanks to United Airlines, Idaho Statesman, Idaho State Historical Society, History Link, Washington State University, Warhawk Air Museum, Sue Paul, Roni Adams)