EARLY DANBURY-MARBLEHEAD PENINSULA TRANSPORTATION - Lorrie Halblaub

AIRPLANES Part 1

Believe it or not, the Marblehead Peninsula once had an airport. According to a past local historian, Marie Wonnell, it was built around 1931. The closest airport before then was in Sandusky.

Playing an instrumental role in the Marblehead airport was Carl P. Biro, whose father, Carl G. Biro, started Biro Manufacturing. Young Carl had graduated from Danbury High School in 1929 and took flying lessons, earning his pilot’s license. Flying became a family tradition with the Biros. Carl’s younger brother, Elmer, and his wife, Doris were both pilots. In fact, Doris trained pilots during World War II. Today their son, Dick, is the current president of Biro Industries and he pilots the company plane.

Recognizing a need, an airport was built near where the quarry crusher is today, on what used to be called “Goose Hill” and is now known as Alexader Pike. It was a group effort: Kelley Island Lime and Transport Co. (the quarry), under the leadership of I. J. Sauvey, furnished the land. Louis St. Marie, as township trustee, secured the use of the township’s road equipment. And the Village of Marblehead funded the project. George Smith, Millard Snider, and Paul Novotny did most of the construction. They laid out a few runways, built a small building with a wind sock on it, and the name MARBLEHEAD was spelled out in concrete letters, 18 feet high. These letters were painted white and were visible at nearly 2,000 feet of altitude.

In 1936, two U.S. Army Boeing P12’s were on a cross-country training flight originating from Newark, New Jersey, when they flew into heavy fog over Lake Erie. Luckily they could see the small airport and landed safely. Carl Biro heard the planes and invited the pilots to spend a few days as guests in the Biro home. When the weather cleared, the grateful pilots put on a small show of precision flying for the crowd that gathered to see them off.

Later, there was an article in the Peninsular News from May of 1938 that said the airport had lain dormant for several years, resulting in a reconditioning by the Village. The Air Sign (which I assume are the Marblehead letters), the circle, and the arrow were whitewashed, runways were cleaned, and a wind cone erected. The air field had been used the previous Sunday by a plane from Cincinnati.

Eventually the small Marblehead airport consolidated with the Carl Keller Airport in Port Clinton. This became the Erie-Ottawa International Airport in 1999. Today, this airport, according to Clay Finken the airport’s director, is busier than Toledo Airport. Keller Field was also once home to the Island Airlines, founded in 1936. It was known as the “Shortest Airline in the World” and it serviced the Lake Erie Islands, using the Ford Trimotor plane affectionately known as the “Tin Goose”.