Recently I found four old childrens’ books my mother had stashed away – curiosities of her early life after she moved with her parents to Kahoka, MO, where my grandfather became a rural mail-carrier. Born in 1895, she began her education when styles and customs were much different than today, and the books she saved offer a glimpse into that quaint era.

Three are marked with her name, including a tiny eight-pager, “Old Rip Van Winkle,” on linen stock with her name on the front. Its story is told with large type and colorful illustrations, using the inside-front and inside-back covers. It was published in 1898 by W.D. Conkey Co., a Chicago-based firm that also published the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Another, “Swinging on the Gate,” a 12-pager with large type, is inscribed “To Mabel Forrester from her Sunday School Teacher, Mrs. Forrester.” Oddly, this would have been her mother. The book’s cover and back have four-color illustrations, with smaller black and white pictures on the inside pages. The inside covers are illustrated with alphabets and numbers. This little book has no publisher or date listed. Clothing styles indicate the period to be late 1800s.

Operating in an era when airplanes were a novelty, pilots navigated using “dead reckoning, and a good landing was “any landing you could walk away from,” Kansas City’s early-day airports saw a variety of aviation history being made.

Greater Kansas Citians saw their first flights in December 1909, when Charles K. Hamilton, a member of the Curtiss aviation team, flew exhibition flights on an improvised field in Overland Park, KS. The flights were sponsored by the Overland Park Athletic Club and covered more than a mile at an altitude of 500 feet. Visitors made their way to the field using the Strang Electric Line, an interurban trolley.  

The area’s first airport was Keller Strasse Field, using a portion of Albert C. Reed’s farm, east of present-day 87^th and Holmes Road. Its early customers included  E.L. Sloniger and Blaine Tuxhorn, two of the area’s first pilots. Sloniger flew for a Kansas City-to-Wichita Airline, formed in 1925, that lasted for three months. Tuxhorn operated his own airline between Kansas City and St. Joseph. In 1926, he even built his own airplane for the route.

Richards Field, located south of Hwy. 50 near present-day Raytown, was little more than a pasture, but attracted a variety of pilots, and National Air Transport, Kansas City’s first major airline. Kansas City’s first airmail service began May 12, 1926, when a Curtiss “Carrier Pigeon” landed at the airport.

Kansas City Municipal Airport, a large field located in just north of the Missouri River in Clay County, was dedicated on August 17, 1927, by Charles Lindbergh, three months after his solo flight to Paris. Lindbergh was scouting the area as a possible location for T.A.T. Airlines, later to become T.W.A. In a speech, Lindbergh praised the area. A recording of it encouraged the company to establish Kansas City as its headquarters.

For more Kansas City-area aviation history, read Ken’s E-book, “Early-Day Flying in Kansas City.” $2.99 from Amazon.com.

The isolation often meant that a week spent looking forward to a visit to a county-seat town for a matinee showing a Hopalong Cassidy flick with a side of Bugs Bunny cartoons while my parents did their trading could be ruined by a Friday night rain. The 4-mile dirt road connecting us with the nearest blacktop would turn to mud, a challenge too great for our old Chevy.

Looking back, growing up on an isolated farm had its advantages. From an early age, my folks allowed me to explore the farm on my own. I remember my six-year-old self playing in a shallow creek while my dad plowed bottomland. I’d build small dams that would quickly wash away, and pursue crawdads and frogs that usually avoided by reach. It was a far cry from the helicopter parenting that isolates and protects today’s youngsters from the realities of life, but I survived.

The photo shows Ken as a toddler at the back of their farmhouse, which featured a pump for drawing water. His dad (and occasional harvest hands) would use the pump to wash up before entering the house for dinner.

Back in its day, the massive and ornate Victorian-style depot building built in 1891 was a centerpiece of Keokuk, IA. Then a bustling transportation center, the city boasted five railroads and a steady stream of packet boats plying the Mississippi River.

 Over the years, many of the packet lines gave way to railroads, and most of the rail lines gave way to automobiles and trucks. As the years passed, people like my grandfather, who used the Keokuk and Western Railroad for most of his travels, would be forgotten, as would the massive depot building that remained as a crumbling relic.

 For the past decade, however, the city of Keokuk and a dedicated group of preservationists have worked to restore the depot. On Nov. 9, they met to celebrate the results of their work. A massive Victorian roof, gleaming tile and stonework, woodwork, ornate chandeliers, and a rare trackside canopy were separate restoration projects. The iron canopy is said to be the only one of its kind in existence.

 The depot is available as a venue for parties, reunions and other events. Other possibilities include an Airbnb as a destination for railroad enthusiasts.

Recently, I found an old aviation poster, rolled up in a corner. It’s a reminder of the days I had a love affair with aviation, writing about its history in self-published magazines, and actually learning to fly at the old Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, KS.

The poster features Ozark Air Lines in 1985, the year before Trans World Airlines, then an important Kansas City institution, absorbed them. Ozark had a brief startup in 1933 with flights between Kansas City and Springfield, but that effort only lasted a year. A decade later it resurfaced, taking over from the failed Parks Air Transport.

For the next four decades, Ozark expanded its operations, eventually acquiring 80-passenger DC-9s and serving 90 destinations from its St. Louis hub. In 1985, not long after my poster was printed, it merged with Air Midwest, changing its name to Ozark Midwest. The following year, the airline was bought out by TWA.

I had one encounter with the airline in the early 1960s. I was learning to fly at the old Fairfax Airport in Kansas City, KS, and attempted a solo cross-country round-trip flight to Columbia Regional Airport. It was a clear and sunny day, but windy, when I took off early in the morning in the flying club’s ancient Cessna 140 tail-dragger (My instructor, Bill Cliff, said later if he hadn’t overslept, he would have grounded me because of the wind conditions).
The Cessna’s normal top speed was a bit over 100 mph, but with a 40-mph tailwind, I zipped to Columbia in record time. I intended to land on their main east-west runway, but to my dismay, an Ozark DC-3 was parked there, awaiting passengers. I decided to land on the grass strip running north south, “crabbing” into the wind and holding my breath as I executed my first (and probably best ever) cross-wind landing.

On the flight back to Kansas City, the headwind slowed me to a crawl, as I watched vehicles outpace me on the newly built interstate. Slowly crossing over North Kansas City, I radioed the tower and got OK’d for a direct landing on Fairfax’s east-west runway. As I approached, a Boeing 707 airliner appeared to my right, heading for Downtown Airport. It looked blimp-sized as our flight paths began to converge. I had to circle and make another approach, losing a lot of distance as I fought against the strong headwind, but I managed a successful landing.

It was one of my most exciting days as a student pilot — I eventually took my check-ride at Downtown Airport, and got my license, although my “flying career” only lasted a few years. And it was my first – and only – encounter with Ozark Air Lines, whose parked plane nearly ended my flying before it started.

Ozark used many clever marketing plans to promote business, and the “sweepstakes” theme may have been an offer to combine flights with Mississippi River cruises. My research efforts came up empty.

My poster is unique, as it’s one of the last to be issued under the Ozark Air Lines brand before the company absorbed Air Midwest, and a year before it was absorbed by TWA. But its value may be limited. Many flying-themed posters are available online, with prices as low as $19.