By 
The airport is several miles north of Delavan in Morris County on the old Herington WWII Air Force Base. Max Wendell told us that Beech built B-17s here during tht war and after the war built commercial on the base.
For more info, check out Kansas State Historical Society page on Kansas WWII Air Bases.
Old air base hanger.
Chimney and partial building. Air base remnants.
Max told us that this Herington Airport Restaurant used to be the Casey’s building that was in Herington before the land was confiscated several years ago to build the overpass over the railroad crossing. He guesstimated that about 125 people work at this industrial park, most of them at Pyrodex, but also quite a few at the stone company.
At U.S. Stone. There’s nothing to show the scale of these rocks, but that big one on the bottom right is probably about the VW Beetle – and probably weighs a lot more.
In about 1973, I interviewed with the Care Display company that was located on the base. They did a lot of work for Cessna back then.
My dad worked there for awhile, but that was in the early ’40’s.
The history of WWII Kansas Army Air Fields should be preserved for future generations.
In fact that is the purpose of an organization in Pratt working to build a Museum and Digital Media Library to share the story of the development of the B-29 in Kansas.
Their mission is as follows:
“B-29 Museum Inc.: Our Mission
The mission of the B-29 Museum Inc. organization is to celebrate the history and to document this experience of Kansas Army Air Fields and their influence on associated communities during WW II; and to complement and contribute to the Pratt All Veterans Memorial Complex as a community resource and gathering place where we observe, explore and preserve this story for future generations.”
For those who want to find out more about this project, see
http://sites.google.com/site/b29museuminc/ and
http://prattveteransmemorial.org/eng/About/Current-Projects/Bombers-On-The-Prairie-Museum-Project
Thanks Cheryl for mentioning and showing these important historic places in Kansas.
Milt:
Thank you for sending this, I often drive to Manhattan via highway 77 and pass Herington, I have often wondered where the old base is, I will make a special trip some weekend to visit the grounds, this site is most informative and once again thank you for sending it.
Bill