Muscogee County GaArchives Photo Person.....Peddy, T.J. ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 April 23, 2007, 10:29 pm Source: Special Sesquicentennial II, Ledger-Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978, Pg S-26 Name: T.J. Peddy Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/photos/peddy12646gph.jpg Image file size: 199.4 Kb Commercial Aviation Began in 1944 By Ralph Willingham Ledger staff Writer You'd have thought the Wright brothers were coming because of the crowd at the Muscogee County Airport. About 2,500 people milled around the makeshift ranch-style shack that served as an administration building and weather bureau. But this wasn't Kitty Hawk. It was Aug. 1, 1944, and commercial aviation was nothing new - except to Columbus. The people were waiting to see the Houston Flyer, an Eastern Airlines DC-3, touch down on one of the two runways. It was the first commercial flight ever for Columbus, and it signaled the beginning Of fast, comforable travel. And the beginning of the the end for the railroads. The plane was late. It had started in New York but was delayed an hour by winds off the coast of North Carolina. When it finally touched down at 4:04 p.m., the curious Columbus citizens crowded around to admire the big, sleek body and the huge propellers. A photographer took pictures of Mayor Sterling Albrecht accepting some of the 92 pounds of mail that shared the ride with 17 passengers. Another snapshot caught the mayor helping put a 149-pound bag of outgoing mail on the Flyer. Helping the mayor play mailman was T. J. Peddy, who was office manager for Eastern Airlines, and temporarily manager of the airport. The transfer completed, Peddy, the mayor and the crowd stepped back as the F1yer began taxiing away. Some were a bit slow and got a shower of sand from the propellers. As Peddy watched the plane take off for Houston, he could think back to politicking that made it all possible. The Municipal Airport on Victory Drive had opened as a landing site for private planes some years earlier. But until the local postmaster started thinking modern, there was nothing else. "Leighton McPherson was the postmaster here and a personal friend of President Roosevelt," Peddy recalls. "He would have Christmas and Thanksgiving dinner with him when Roosevelt came to Warm Springs. When he asked for for a duplicate post office like the one at Fort Benning, he got it. When he asked for air mail service to Columbus, he got it. To my knowledge, this is the only airport in the nation to get an airline without an FAA or CAB hearing." Actually, it wasn't quite that simple. Peddy's done a lot of digging into local history since he retired from Eastern in 1973. He understands that nobody in Columbus was much interested in McPherson's efforts to build an airport. So he approached others. A few contributed land. Others put up some money. County Attorney Bentley Chappell and County Commission Chairman L.R. Alridge joined the push. "The war came along and the Army took away all the airplanes from the airlines," Peddy says. "But,as the war neared the end, Eastern finally got its planes back." It was ready to send some to Columbus, and Columbus had spent the interim getting ready. "For several years there were just two paved strips," Peddy recalls. "The War Production Board told the county, which operated them, that it was limited to $1,000 to build an administration building. So the county tore down a bunch of old-buildings and got convicts to do the work. The story goes that the first carpenter took one look at the lumber and said he wouldn't ruin his tools on that kind of wood." The building didn't just look primitive. The workers dug a well to provide water for rest rooms, but the health department forbade use of this water for drinking. So the, convicts had to go out and dip water from a surface spring behind the airport and bring it inside. The only internal conveniences were a Royal Crown Cola dispenser and a radio. Peddy had come to Columbus after starting with Eastern in Atlanta in 1937, then transferring to Spartanburg, S.C., and becoming manager of the Birmingham office of Eastern. He combined his managing duties in Columbus with the job of airport manager. Peddy got a third job in those early days. Nobody was qualified to be weather observer, and the Columbus airport had to have one. So he studied, took an exam and took over that task, too. "We had to keep the weather bureau open 24 hours a day, and that meant a girl had to stay out there at night by herself. One girl from Texas strapped on a gun and wore it out there," Peddy says. Things were serviceable enough by landing day, but a plan for a second plane to touch down on Aug. 1 fell through. It was to be a night landing, but Muscogee' County Airport had no runway lights. There weren't any for the first couple of years, Peddy says. Passengers didn't exactly flock to the airport. Less than 100 boarded Eastern flights in the first month. In the first few years there were only two planes a day, one northbound, one southbound. Just as Columbus was getting used to aviation, it experienced the first and only air crash ever to occur at the airport. April 22, 1947, was a big day. eight high ranKing executives of Delta Air Lines were flying to Columbus to plan for the opening of the airline's terminal office here.Meanwhile, J. ,C. Fussell, a 47-year-old Columbus businessman, took off from Municipal Airport on Victory Drive, in his single-engine BT-13. For some reason never explained, the Delta plane was making its landing approach when Fussell's plane swung in behind it and settled on its tail. Fussell's propeller bit into the airline's tail. Both planes pulled up, the DC- 3 turned and the two craft collided. They fell to the ground in smoke and flame. "I was one of the first persons to get to it," Peddy recalls. "I threw one of those C02 extinguishers in the car, but that couldn't begin to do any good. People were coming from every direction, like ants in trails. I went back and notified Delta." There were no survivors. Airport rules weren't too stringent in those early days. Paratroopers used to come out to the strip and jump for spectators on Sundays, to pick up a few extra bucks. That practice dwindled after one man's chute didn't open. "They say grass never grew where his body hit," Peddy says. As interest in flying grew, so did investment in it. Southern Airways began service in 1949, and today is the only airline flying from Columbus to New York withouta stop in Atlanta. With all this activity, the need for a bigger facility was obvious. A new $400.000 terminal was built, and in 1950 all services moved into what is now Columbus Metropolitan Airport. Since that time, Columbus has kept pace with changes in aviation. Delta began jet service here in 1968, followed by Eastern in 1969. In 1977 more than 169,000 passengers - approximately the population of the City of Columbus - boarded planes here, compared with 55, 4/22/6 in 1944. Delta was the most used airline last year, with Southern and Eastern dividing the remaining passengers about evenly. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement II Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 23, 1978.S-22 Scanned by Christine G. Thacker, 4/22/2007. 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