|
|
|
|
|
Buildings & Sites
|
| The following article appeared in the Issaquah Historical Society's Past Times newsletter, Summer 2001. For more information on the Skyport, visit the Gilman Town Hall Museum's Research Center. A full notebook of photos and memorabilia is available. |
The last component of the Gilman Town Hall exhibit, Issaquah Milestones, is a sign asking visitors to note events that they consider important to our local history. One comment reads, “WWII – the skyport was built. Shame it doesn’t stand anymore.” Noting a lack of information on the Skyport in our research files, volunteer Diane Dambacher began researching the topic.
Her search for information led her to Linn Emrich, a Lifetime Member of the Historical Society. Emrich is also the former operator of the Issaquah Skyport and founder of the Seattle Sky Sports Club. Diane paid Linn a visit at his home on Camano Island, and he shared the Skyport’s story with her.
The Skyport began as a flight training facility during World War II. It was constructed on land belonging to the Pickering Family, and adjacent to the Pickering Farm.
After World War II the Skyport continued accommodating small planes. In 1961, Linn Emrich leased the Skyport and founded the Seattle Sky Sports Club. According to its mission statement, the club, a non-profit organization, “encouraged the use of the sky as a playground.” The Club offered training in parachuting, gliding and ballooning. It also hosted air shows. Many fans would come week after week to watch the jumps and other sky sports that took place there.
For nearly 30 years, the Skyport provided recreation for jumpers and spectators alike. Then the building boom began. The 1980s brought an influx of both businesses and housing developments into Issaquah. Developers wanted to break Emrich’s lease on the Skyport property so that they could create a retail center. The property was tied up in litigation for several years while the developers worked to break the lease. Finally, in 1987, the lease expired. In that year there was also a bond issue aimed at keeping the Skyport, which was defeated.
Shortly after the election, a letter to the editor by Lee Will appeared in the Issaquah Press. It read, “I am sitting on the pea gravel at the Skyport right now. It is several days after the election. My heart is broken… each time I'd drive up I-90, my eyes would behold magical moments as parachutes burst open and people skydanced and swirled to the ground. It was poetry in motion… soon there will be bulldozers where I sit and write you this letter.” Today, the Pickering Place shopping center stands on what once was the Skyport.
Skyport/Sky-Jacker Link?
|
| The following article appeared in the Issaquah Historical Society's Past Times newsletter, Autumn 2001. |
Our article on the Issaquah Skyport attracted a lot of attention and commentary. People shared their memories of the Skyport, and their feelings of sadness that it is now gone. One community member donated an Issaquah t-shirt that depicted parachutes and balloons over the Issaquah Valley. Ab and Marjorie Davies, of Odessa, WA, also read the article in their newsletter. They decided to stop by the Gilman Town Hall on their way to the Coast to tell us what they knew about the Skyport – which was quite a bit! Twenty years before Linn Emrich began operating the Seattle Skyport, Ab Davies and a partner built and founded the Seattle Sky Ranch.
In our last newsletter we reported that the Skyport began as a flight training facility during World War II. This was not entirely true. Along with partner Al Lockwood, Davies built and founded the Sky Ranch in 1941 out of a love of flying. After WWII, former enlisted men could go to flight school on the G.I. Bill, and many of them came to the Seattle Sky Ranch. Ab’s wife, Marjorie remembers, “They used to say that if you could learn to fly at the Sky Ranch, you could fly anywhere. It was little more than a pasture.” Nevertheless, Davies and his partner were training more than 125 young men a month. The Sky Ranch was the biggest flight training school in the state. While Ab was busy with flight training, Marjorie managed the office and took care of their two daughters.
Things stayed busy after the sun when down too. The Sky Ranch also served as a night spot — the hangar boasted a restaurant and “bottle club” (a BYOB bar). On Saturday nights there was an organist and dancing.
The end of the G.I. bill and steeply rising rent forced the Sky Ranch into bankruptcy in 1951. The Davies moved to Odessa and started a new business spraying wheat fields, moving some of the Sky Ranch’s 17 planes along with them.
We appreciate the Davies stopping by to give us this information! Now we hope that someone will stop by the Gilman Town Hall to tell us what happened at the Skyport between 1951 and 1961…
|
While relating
information about the Skyport’s history, Linn Emrich also entertained Diane
Dambacher with many other stories. Her favorite was about Emrich’s role in
the D.B. Cooper sky-jacking. On the night before Thanksgiving in 1971, an
airline passenger identified as D.B. Cooper threatened to blow up the plane
he was on unless his demands for money and parachutes were met. Linn Emrich
tells of receiving a call from the Washington State Patrol asking him to
deliver the four parachutes Cooper requested, which he did. After his
demands were met, Cooper ordered the plane to take off and then jumped into
a freezing rainstorm at 10,000 feet. His body was never found and his
whereabouts are unknown.