First airborne voyage to Vegas hailed

SE/VIEW--A DC-3"Rose" flys over the Las Vegas Strip marking the 85th anniversary of flight over Vegas Saturday May 7, 2005. View photo Henry Vargas.

No one could have predicted what kind of place Las Vegas would become, but historians agree that when Randall Henderson made the first flight in history to what was then a small desert town on May 7, 1920, he knew he was making a mark.

"He enjoyed doing it. He wanted to be the first," said Mark Hall-Patton, administrator at the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum. "No one could have had an idea of what Las Vegas would become ... He couldn't have foreseen that, but I think he did understand the value of aviation."

Henderson was a newspaper editor in Blythe, Calif., who talked a local businessman into buying a war surplus aircraft. The aircraft came in a box and Henderson -- a World War I pilot who never saw any action but stayed in training, got his flight certificate and became a reservist for many years -- put it together.

The businessman told Henderson that if he purchased the plane, Henderson had to teach him how to fly. If he would teach him, Henderson could enjoy the plane when the businessman was not using it.

Henderson used it to have many adventures.

"Henderson liked flying into little desert towns, being the first one to fly in," Hall-Patton said.

The first flight to Las Vegas even included a paying passenger.

"Only in Las Vegas," said Don Stark, director of marketing at Boyd Gaming, which sponsored an air parade over the Strip on May 7 to commemorate the historic flight.

The paying customer was Jake Beckley, a store owner in Blythe who requested to pair fly over his brother's nearby home on their way into Las Vegas so he could drop a doll from the plane to his niece. The doll had a bumpy landing due to the excitement of the people awaiting the arrival of the plane.

"She got the doll and of course all of her little friends wanted to touch it and they were all grabbing at it and tore its head off," Hall-Patton said. "The poor doll didn't survive the first day."

No one is sure exactly where the plane landed for the first time. All newspaper accounts refer only to an old roadhouse south of town, Hall-Patton said. Readers then would have known what that meant, but historians are unsure. They think it landed near what was then Los Angeles Highway -- the Strip today -- somewhere near San Francisco Street -- now Sahara Avenue.

After the initial landing, Henderson stayed for three days giving rides to people in the biplane. He gave one ride to a local Paiute Indian chief who nearly caused the craft to crash when he passed out and leaned against the training controls in the front seat. Henderson managed to bring the plane down safely, unconscious chief and all, after performing some creative maneuvers with his controls.

Although that first flight was not considered a commercial trip -- that did not happen until 1926 -- air travel to Las Vegas would evolve from that moment, from one passenger to the 41 million visitors per year who now use McCarran International Airport.

"By Thanksgiving of that year, we already had an airfield here," Hall-Patton said.

A commercial airline was not far behind.

"As soon as commercial aviation came in here in 1926, we got an airline, Western Air Express, and the first stop it ever made was here," Hall-Patton said.

Those early airlines would give way to larger carriers and the small airstrips that cropped up all over town eventually evolved to become McCarran and several other airports in the region.

McCarran is now the sixth busiest airport in the nation, and it's not even a hub, where travelers are forced to go.

It all began with an airplane that came in a box.

"All of it comes back to this guy," Hall-Patton said, "who, just because he wanted to, brought aviation to basically a watering hole in the desert."

Author Phil Brigandi, who recently published a biography of Henderson, said Henderson was best known for something quite different than flying. He was the founder and publisher of Desert Magazine, a publication in print for 50 years which encouraged interest in the desert Southwest.

Most people have never known him for his place in aviation but he did play an important role, "even if he didn't go around bragging about it," Brigandi said. "He's a man who managed to make his mark in a number of different areas."

Henderson flew into many desert towns, but only in Las Vegas did air travel become part of the life blood.

"It wouldn't mean much if we were somewhere that was not so dependant on tourism, not so dependant on people coming in. But where we are now, if we had not had that kind of start, we wouldn't have what we have today," Hall-Patton said.

A year and a half went into planning an air parade to commemorate Henderson's first flight.

Stark, who initially had the idea when he was brainstorming ideas to celebrate the city's centennial, said he knew there was no way to have a parade on the Strip.

When he found out his idea for a parade in the air coincided with a huge milestone for flight in the city and was about a week away from the city's birthday, he was thrilled.

Planners had to get special permission from the Federal Aviation Administration for the parade, which served as a kick-off to a slew of Centennial events.

Stark said the parade was worth the work to mark the first flight.

"If it weren't for that, this would just be a wide spot in the road in the desert," Stark said.