Ford Tri-Motor (N8407)

Jim - I hope that airport building is on the "Historical Register"... :-)

Thanks for sharing with us!!!

Cliff731, yes it is registered as historic. Also on the bluff across the Mississippi river from the airport is an old airways beacon that still operates every night and flashes white...white.

Jim - thanks for the information. There's an older airport terminal in my state's capitol city that never made that list. It's also a WPA built terminal as I recall, but has suffered from abandonment and neglect over the years. That "white-white" airport beacon flash... that's for an unlighted land airport?

Nice composition Jim, thanks!

A standard land airport has a white...green beacon, and St Paul has one of those.
The white... white beacon was part of the old airway when Northwest Airways flew mail and passengers between St Paul and Chicago. They were spaced about 10 miles apart along the route.
So, in a sense, St Paul has two beacons.
Thanks for the nice complements guys.

Thanks, Jim... and You are very welcome. I do appreciate that information!!! :-)

This photo of this old, but incredibly convenient, Airport, brings back so many wonderful memories. It’s known to us old
pilots, as Holman Field, named after Charlie “Speed” Holman, an airmail, barnstorming, daredevil pilot, who also was the
first hired pilot by Northwest Airlines. This airport was the place from which I received my ASEL in 1967 from a great
little company called Robb Aviation. Thanks for posting the photo of this historic aircraft, parked in front this historic old
stone terminal.

KSTP is just a stone's throw from my home airport - KFCM (Flying Cloud, MN).
Also visible in the distance is the dome of the Cathedral of Saint Paul, just to the WNW of this location.

When was the photo taken?
We stop down at Holman occasionally to eat at the restaurant in the terminal, but have never seen any historical aircraft on the ramp.

The photo was taken on 7-7-2018 when the EAA with the help of Chapter 54 were selling rides that weekend.

My father was a crew member on the first westbound transcontinental commercial flight(s) in one of these amazing airplanes. I used the plural for flight because the journey was a combination of Pullman trains and Ford Tri-Motors.

It originated in New York aboard a train called the"Airways Limited." It would stop and let the passengers off at Port Columbus airport where they walked to a waiting Tri-Motor. It would fly them to Waynoka, OK where they would board another train that took them on to Albuquerque where they'd record a Twi-Motor that took then Glendale, CA.

That would look spectacular in B&W. Nice shot. I got a shot of her in Anoka. I love seeing that up in the air. It is good to see in front of that spot. I have a nice shot of the building with the Miss Mitchell flying past. Link to the shot on flicker: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46333063@N03/46514820882/in/dateposted/