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The recent cool mornings signal the end of summer activities.ﾠ Visits with friends and family, festivals and reunions are now packed away inﾠmemory banks to be relived time and again when old friends meet.

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Such was the case this summer as Roberta Miller Smith, of Staunton, Virginia, and Kay McLaughlin Ross, of Tucson, Arizona, got together and reminisced, playing a game of "Do you remember when?"

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One topic deserved further research.

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ﾓDo you remember when there was an airport in Marlinton?ﾔ

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As it turns out, memories of those days abound.

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Turning off Rt. 219 and onto Old Fairground Road, traveling up Airport Hill and turning right onto Back Airport Road will take you to what is now a cornfield.

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But there was a time in this county's history when taking that route on a Sunday afternoon was quite the thing to do for entertainment.

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As a boy, Keith Moore, of Marlinton, wouldﾠpush his bikeﾠup Airport Hillﾠto watch the planes come and go from the Marlinton Airport.ﾠHe laughed as he remembered days spent ﾓloafingﾔ there and whittling a propeller from a piece of wood, attaching it to his baseball cap and letting it spin as he rode his bike back down the road.

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"That's as close as I ever came to flying," he said.

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But others, like Junie Viers Wagner, remember flying with H. L. "Chisel" Sheets and throwing out flyers advertising air shows.

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Chisel's dad, Carl Sheets, was one of the men who established the Marlinton Airport, and grandson Scott Sheets, of Buckeye, recalls that his grandfather and father gave flying lessons on Sunday afternoons.

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Moore remembered Sheetsﾒ plane with its open cockpit and double wings.

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Eddie VanReenan, of Edray, was quite an airplane buff in his younger days.ﾠ He spent a lot of time at that airport where he and other boys would "get a hold of the tail" of the Piper Cubs and turn them around readying them for take-off or refueling.

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"I knew every one [plane] that went across. I read about them," he said

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Then eight-year-old VanReenan and his four-year-old sister, Eleanor Sue VanReenan Shiflett, now of Bayard, went airborne with a family friend.

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"It was a four passenger plane, one pilot and three passengers," he said.ﾠ ﾓWe flew all over Marlinton and when we came back up the river, the pilot turned the plane upside down."ﾠ VanReenan's mother, Lillian Fowler VanReenan was appalled.

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"Do you know what that fool did?" she asked VanReenan. "He was flying upside-down."

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"I didn't notice. But I remember that the tree trunks were on top of the trees," he laughed.

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VanReenan remembers Walter Mason and his plane.

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ﾓEvery Sunday his wife and daughter, who wouldn't fly, would take Walter to the airport.ﾠThe Mason family had a farm at Handley.ﾠWhen his wife and daughter drove there, Walter wouldﾠcircle their car as they made their way up Woodrow Mountain. When they got to old man Mason's, he'd land, they'd spend the day, and in the evening he would fly back and circle over Edray.ﾠ Practically every Sunday, you'd see him. I think that's all he ever used it for," said VanReenan.

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The hangar, VanReenan recalls, housed as many as 10-12 planes at one time.

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His love of planes led him to Martin Aircraft.

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"I graduated on a Monday night, went to Baltimore on Tuesday and went to work for Martin Aircraft on Wednesday," he said.

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Sunday afternoon pleasure flights expanded once a year to become a popular addition to the Pocahontas County Fair.

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Some liked those rides better than others.

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Vinton Moore, of Marlinton, whose home adjoins the airport property remembers quite well his ride in a double winged plane.

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ﾓDee Burns and I went up in one of those things. Daggone, he [the pilot] scared me to death up there!ﾔ Moore said.

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Most folks who flew there recall a downdraft or air pocket when leaving the high hilltop, soaring over the Greenbrier River in the direction of the present day Rite Aid.

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Reference to that turbulence is made in the Pocahontas County Airport Authority's Master Plan Study of 1988.

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"This location was the former site of an airport with a grass strip where training and pleasure flying was conducted....Predominant winds from the northwest would create a cross wind condition," the study said.

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Although there is no mention of crosswinds causing problems, there were two memorable plane crashes - one into and one near the Stony Creek pier in the Greenbrier River.

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ﾓOn Sunday afternoon, June 12, 1949, Blemont Evans, age 46, and Paul H. Duffy, age 38, both of Richwood, were killed when their airplane fell into the rocky bed of the Greenbrier River at the mouth of Stony Creek.ﾠ The plane, a former Army trainer, had shortly before taken off from the near at hand Marlinton airport.ﾠ Both men were pinned in the wreckage,"ﾠreported the Pocahontas Times.

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Moore and a buddy ﾓwere doubling up on a bike."

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"We saw the plane go down and we went up Greenbrier Hill to the river.ﾠ It just missed Bubbles Cutlip who was catching crawdads.ﾠ He made two hops to get out of the way and there were kids swimming at the pier," Moore recalls.

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"I walked up on the wing of the plane. It was a two-seater Navy plane. I had never seen a dead man. It felt like someone threw cold water on me. I backed off. The undertaker, Clarence Smith, came. They used a hacksaw to cut the plane apart and they put the men in wicker baskets. I was home before dark for six weeks," Moore said.

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A second crash occured within a few years of and within 50 to 100 feet of the 1949 crash site.

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Kyna Moore and sister Terry Moore Wagner spent a lot of time at the home of their grandparents, George and Elizabeth ﾓEbbyﾔ Pritt, which was located right next to the airport.ﾠ When the girls heard a plane circling, they would run and stand on the gate to watch it land.

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Kyna remembers that the airport was once a swampland, fitted with a primitive drain system of tile.

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That swampland came in handy forﾠthree Navy planes, off-course and running low on fuel over Marlinton.

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VanReenan remembered that it was 1944 and he was about 12-years-old.

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ﾓIt had snowed and rained, it was just miserable," said VanReenan.ﾠ "The airport wasn't really long enough for them to land, but it was so muddy that their tires sunk in."

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VanReenan's dad, Roy VanReenan worked for the State Road.

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"For four days, all the DOH trucks hauled gravel from the Edray Quarry to fix the runway.ﾠ They used graders to grade it down. The sun came out, the fog lifted and all the planes took off.ﾠ I stood at my house [in Edray] and watched them. They circled until all three were together and then they took off down the river," he said.

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Charles "Googie" Richardson remembers plane rides with Carl Sheets.

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"He took me up three or four times when I was just 12 or 13-years-old," he said. "We called them aviators. ﾠThey were flying enthusiasts."

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A portion of theﾠhangar, where dances were once held, still stands, as does the office with its knotty pine paneling.

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The property changed hands and uses through the years and is currently owned and well-maintained by Brenda Ricottilli Dilley and her brother, Melvin Ricotilli.

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Although the aviator adventures on that hilltop have been replaced by a cornfield, snapshots of those days have been safely tucked away in the memory banks of the folks who lived them.

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