Wolfeboro's Little Airport & Ralph M. Horn

[Acres per Second]

After the Hurricane of 1938 destroyed the huge maple syrup enterprise of his family, the late Ralph Merwin Horn asked his father if he could finally build an airport on their 100+ acres of Wolfeboro Neck property. With permission granted, Merwin (as he was known to us) pulled the stumps of hundreds of mangled maple trees.

Wolfeboro townspeople helped pull stumps too, with tractors and trucks. ('Can't just cut trees down for a runway -- the stumps have to go, too).

World War II intervened, and Merwin -- already well trained in flight -- trained many of this country's military aviators at a school in the Boston area. Shortly after his death, about 1996, a gift of a memorial headstone was made and stands today next to the runway. Someone always remembers to place a flag next to it every Memorial Day.

Merwin married Eleanor, and the two put in exhausting hours -- for four decades -- to make the airport the busy enterprise it finally became. Often there would be four floatplanes at the dock, dozens of aircraft at the tie-downs, three or four aircraft in the hanger for repairs/maintenance, and takeoffs and landings day and night.

It is my hope to have Forum members post their recollections of these remarkable people here. There are certainly many seaplane pilots who can relate some tales of "The Lakes Region Airpark".

I found one by accident while searching the Internet for SeaBees, an amphibious aircraft manufacturer.

"After receiving gasoline from the Horns' dock, we pushed away and started the engine. The engine coughed a few times and then refused to start.

The wind had allowed our craft to drift in the direction of deep water, and I had previously loaned my paddle to another pilot! With Eleanor looking on, she seemed to grasp the seriousness of the situation and did what any matronly and grandmotherly person in a print dress would do: She waded into the lake waist-deep, and pulled the SeaBee back to the dock!"

The airport/airpark is having a ten-year anniversary --of sorts -- this year, and I'd like collect memories from others who are familiar with the Horns and the evolution of a rural airport with an active floatplane port.

My main source of Wolfeboro's Airpark history is a former employee who I see from time to time. I'll endeavor to share stories from the airport's heydays...when I can get them.

Labor Day Edit:

I recalled today that Ralph (earlier, Merwin) would get radio transmissions from pilots advising of their arrival after dark and, at dusk, would light fifty black "smudge pots" around the runway by hand. (It's a 2500-foot runway).

The lighting was electrified later, but don't recall when. Later yet, the electric lighting could be triggered to light automatically by pilots' radios. The system was discontinued some time after Ralph's death in 1997. The airport beacon was discontinued about 2000.

Though Ralph appeared healthy as a New Hampshire ox in 1996, I conducted a videotaped interview of him that summer and will donate it to the Wolfeboro Library this week. (You wouldn't believe how often the word "oxen" appears in the building of towns around Winnipesaukee on this tape).

Aha!...A link, though sadly outdated: http://www.brewsteracademy.org/Pages/Community/airpark.html

[MJM]

I was sad to see that the plan to develop 38 residential homes on the site is progressing....

[Acres per Second]

I was reminded that Wolfeboro's well-known, and highly regarded Lakeview Inn was once Ralph Merwin Horn's family residence at the airport.

I recall that it was moved on the ice across the Broads and up the hill (and it's some hill) to its present location — by teams of oxen!

Ralph stated that they had to move quickly because the water became four inches deep as the house passed over the ice.

Yes, the airport runway -- though busy as ever before -- is scheduled to be torn up this year.

Homesites are priced from $300,000 for the "cheap seats", to $4½ Million.

Home sites.

[Acres per Second]

Here's another site describing the airport's more technical points: http://www.fltplan.com/AirportInformation/69NH.htm
(The address and telephone numbers are no longer attended to).

About fifteen years ago, I had an occasion to speak with Ralph "Merwin" Horn again.

At the time, however, he was distracted by a recurring problem with the new airport beacon light. Ralph was in the process of packaging up the remains — again — to send in under warrantee when I arrived.

The beacon had been a good "advertisement/reminder" for the airport, and was printed on thousands of maps of Lake Winnipesaukee. (Even unlighted during the daytime it is still tall enough to be a landmark).

Included with the beacon, an entire airport lighting system was provided at no cost to the airport some time in the '80s. A gift from the Wolfeboro civic organizations Rotarians and Masons, the beacon's lenses kept breaking — the pieces falling to the ground. A Town of Wolfeboro volunteer would climb to the very top to replace the lenses each time. The beacon (and all the airport lighting) stopped operating altogether after his death.

In the hour I spent visiting in the hanger and examining the glass fragments, my first inclination was that the light was being "shot out" by somebody. Ralph never mentioned the possibility of such an outrage and my own suspicions stayed to myself.

Ralph spoke proudly of the Lakes Region, and never spoke badly about individuals (except for pilots doing bad fly-things at the airport). A very hard worker, and keeping very long and unsteady hours into his later years, he remains today my favorite "archetype" of a native Granite-Stater.

His ashes were spread over the airport in 1997. (Eleanor's ashes had preceded his by a few years).

In the end, both had "given their everything" to the Lakes Region Airpark of Wolfeboro.

[KevinPlante]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't it closed now?

[Acres per Second]

Good question: It depends on your meaning of "Closed".

While the runway is in good condition, a big "X" was painted on the runway a couple of years ago, which should have indicated "Closed" back then. But flights continue. The east landing-approach from Wolfeboro direction is actually more friendly now that Johnson's Cove trees have been cut down.

Floatplane access has been stopped: Shortly after Ralph Horn died, his new floatplane docks were torn up. (Which started some serious lobbying and lawyering with the State of New Hampshire Attorney General, who tried to enforce a 1984 law keeping small NH airports as local resources). The AG is still "involved", but I don't know how as yet. Even today, the occasional floatplane will taxi the shoreline -- trying to find those docks.

Fees have been raised: Gas, services, lighting, storage, and maintenance have been gradually restricted to pilots over the past years; however, there are regular users every decent flying day -- and, for October, many visitors -- perhaps for leaf-peeping?

October activity included helicopters (private and government -- some very large) and twin- and single-engine aircraft -- night and day. There were three visits made by an immense Russian Antonov AN-2 biplane just last week. Very impressive sight and sounds!

From my boat, I watched a Cessna make an approach on Monday's very blustery late afternoon, but he declined to land. There is some commercial boat/trailer outdoor-storage activities going on there presently, and may have presented a landing hazard.

Sunset is the best time for us airport-junkies to watch this "closed" airport in action.

[SIKSUKR]

I know I sound like I'm stirring things up APC but why is an"offshore" boats' loud motor such an annoyance and an "immense Russian Antonov AN-2 biplane" noise "very impressive".Very confusing isn't it?

[Acres per Second]

Ah...Grasshopper. :D

It is the Antonov's radial engine that makes the difference.

Like the sound that a Harley-Davidson makes from its own antique design lineage, a radial engine makes a very distinctive sound: If it's flying over Winnipesaukee, you can detect it.

The radial engine sound has even produced a cottage industry in CD recordings. (You can listen on-line!)
http://www.spitcrazy.com/sounds_of_aviation.htm
http://rareaviation.com/raenfrso.html

One recording company has even added music to the sound:
http://sounddogs.com/results.asp? (Vocals!)

I don't know of any similar recordings of any other engine.

Too, it is the sound of our WWII American "Warbird" legacy. These designs produced engines of 3600+HP from a single engine. Here's the radial engine principle. (http://http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/radial.htm)

Like some boats on Winnipesaukee, Harley-Davidson motorcyclists try to project a kind of "Warbird" image. (Paint jobs, graphics, decals, leather jackets and "character"). It's just ridiculous that our Warbird legacy of WWII could be matched or experienced through paint jobs and appearances: think "poseur". All the other engine sounds that strike my ear at Winnipesaukee are projected through noisy Detroit-Iron exhaust pipes, housed in expensive fiberglass jukeboxes.

And the Antonov has never awakened me in the middle of the night.

APS

[KevinPlante]

So the difference is the nostalgia? A half-century old Harley that is running like crap does not sound good. Most well tuned engines have a good sound to them, to a gearhead anyways. A well dialed-in Formula1 engine has its own high pitch scream while big Detroit iron has its own rumble, as does a race-ready Ducati. Very different sounds, but all pleasing to the ear. I will agree that well-tuned radial engines have a great sound to them. Radials are usually very loud. To say that it does not annoy people because it is a radial instead of another configuration does not make sense. What about something like a P-51 or a Spitfire? Do those sound good? They don't have radials, but fit in to the nostalgia idea...

[Acres per Second]

I was recently regaled by a "Greatest Generation" friend of Ralph Horn's that Ralph once had a buyer for one of his aircraft. The only stipulation was that it had to be delivered THAT DAY!

Scanning the runway with its two feet of snow on it, Ralph got out the snowplow and plowed a track to the runway, clearing about one third of the runway's length. (The east end, at Johnson's Cove).

He then taxied the aircraft to the very end, and took off diagonally, using every inch of the cleared runway. He overflew the "T"-hangers pictured below by a few feet and delivered the aircraft -- that day.

Hey, the guy trained WWII pilots -- who's going to argue?




http://fool.exler.ru/sm/velo.gif

[PaulH]

I've been travelling to Winnipesaukee every August for the past sixteen years. For most of that time, Lakes Region Airpark was the way we got there. Even now, three years after I last used the airport, it seems strange to get there any other way. To me, the Airpark was the heart and soul of the Lakes Region. Wolfeboro meant Airpark. The seaplanes tied up at the dock were evocative of the north woods. Coming over the dark ridges of trees to the narrow little runway, surrounded on three sides by clear water, it was obvious that I was a long way from Washington, DC, if not in another world entirely.

Over my sixteen years, I got a once-a-year snapshot of the Airpark, and watched its fortunes rise and fall. There was a golden period in the mid-1990s when there were lots of people there, even a Saturday hamburger cookout. Then, there was a bleak period of deterioration and no fuel available. In the late 1990s, there was a brilliant recovery, anfd the airport returned to health. This was short-lived, and the facility went into its final decline. At the end, I had to use my own stakes to tie the aircraft down and it required a long negotiation to get a local car rental place to transport us between the airpark and the Sandy Island dock. Laconia and, finally, Moultonboro were so much more convenient, had fuel, and offered a quicker trip to the island. I felt disloyal not to use Wolfeboro, but the airport was becoming almost impossible to use as a gateway to the region.

This summer, they started digging up the runway. Lots of little houses on the way, all built out of ticky-tacky and all looking just the same. All part of a general pattern of removing beauty and individuality from Wolfeboro. Then again, if people don't appreciate what they have, they deserve to lose it. One of the good things about using Moultonboro Airport is that I can come for a two week stay on the island without every having to spend a dime at, or even see, that town that threw away their beautiful airport.

Paul

[Acres per Second]

Lots of Lakes Region pilots get misty about the airport and thinking of the supreme effort put forth by the Horn family to get it there.

Planes still "shoot" the runway, and it may be possible to land a plane there today-though it's
still uphill :emb: )

Here's a photo of the tiedown area in its "Happy Skies" days:

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/chipmunkwhisperer/OldTiedownArea.jpg

Atop the red and white pole at the extreme right is the airport's beacon. It appears on many charts of the Lake Region as "flashing green and white".

[jrc]

...Atop the red and white pole at the extreme right is the airport's beacon. It appears on many charts of the Lake Region as "flashing green and white".

Maybe they can convert that beacon into a cell phone tower and quell the arguements in Alton. :laugh:

[Acres per Second]

It was intended for floatplanes, but with this super-long gas line you could fill up your boat with 100 octane gasoline at the water's edge. (And some neighbors did). Town concerns resulted in having the pump removed. :(

The pump was replaced by a big gasoline tank in a 1-ton pickup's bed! :emb:

On the driver's seat was a clipboard where you would post the number of gallons you used and your address. You would—eventually—be sent a bill. (The Honor System until 1997, when the delivery system was again dramatically changed).

This re-photo, from the mid-60s, shows how crowded Winter Harbor could get on a sunny day!

(That's the truck's door to the left).

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/chipmunkwhisperer/WONandWOFFL/GasDock966.jpg

[Acres per Second]

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/chipmunkwhisperer/RepublicSeabee.jpg

An identical amphibian, but in silver, flew low over the airport runway yesterday. It appeared to be giving homage to our bygone Wolfeboro assets of float- and land- plane havens. Since the Republic SeaBee amphibian continuously operated out of the Wolfeboro Airpark for half a century, I saw yesterday's flight as an omen for me to post an update! :look:

Ralph Horn always bemoaned that he hadn't bought the heavily forested southern approach to the airport, as landing approaches had always been a challenge from that direction. (Some pilots would say "challenge" isn't a strong enough word). :eek:

His abutter, Brad Frankum, never "harvested" those big white pines, and allowed his extensive estate to return to Old Growth. While most of the airport-end of Wolfeboro Neck is packed with soggy clay, Frankum's area is one giant granite outcropping. (Now heavily dynamited and fractured).

While not an expert in geology, the old ledge appears to have halted the glacier's southern push of lake bottom clay from 20,000 years ago. From the original grass strip, the paving of the runway had always been fraught with big puddles in summer and frost heaves in spring. The first paving didn't last one year!

But last year, those old Forest Giants were felled from the southern end and the entire paved runway was bulldozed. What had been the old runway was filled with a bazillion truckloads of dirt to extend it several hundred feet—from where it had previously ended in a soggy rockpile. That rockpile, in turn, had been "harvested" from the dredgings of the Walgreen's McMega-Boathouse moat nearby.

The dynamiting for that moat shook the ground and air ten times worse than any New Hampshire earthquake has. I'll bet it was heard in Center Harbor!

The entire runway "terra-forming" got a hydroseeding last year, so it now looks like a pasture. (Well, it did in Spring, before our present drought :emb: ).

The intent was to make housing lots, but it's a perfect grass landing strip today, with the approach opened up and "the runway" finally extended.

Maybe the new owners heard that FedEx is now paying Big Bucks to lease air-delivery rights for their smaller freight aircraft! (Which is especially true today, as even the future of Rochester's Airport—Skyhaven—remains gloomy).

Here's a newer view of the hanger—in the distance—during the "terra-forming":
http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/chipmunkwhisperer/ScarifiedRunwayshowinghanger.jpg

[Acres per Second]

This photo, taken from a Piper Cub, shows the airport's abutting floatplane area with two floatplanes on ramps and one other at the dock. (Diamond Island and Rattlesnake Island—with no houses yet built on the Broads side—appear in the hazy distance).

Because the runway wasn't paved as yet, the photo could have been taken as early as 1957. My guess on the date would be 1961. The floatplane gas pump, photographed lakeside in 1966, doesn't appear here. A large blue hanger, built in 1971, also doesn't appear. (It would have appeared under the Cub's strut).

The paved runway was removed a couple of years ago by a developer, so the same aerial taken in 2006 would have shown a greener, but identical, scene! (OK, there would be no "peppering" of Florida mildew on the slide :emb: ).

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i117/chipmunkwhisperer/SCAN-00003.jpg

Since 2006, three McMansions have been built and five docks added. The lakefront white cottage prominent in the photo was upgraded inside and out at a cost of $200K in 1999. It has today been replaced by a spec-built McMansion advertised for $3.9M. :eek: (If you don't like the design of the spec-built, there's a buildable lakefront lot available nearby for $4.2M). :rolleye2:

After 40 years, the runway has reverted to a grass landing strip once again. :look:

An approach for a landing on the strip has never been easier, as many cathedral pines on adjacent cove lots have been removed. The runway has even been extended in both directions beyond anyone's imagination, and the landing strip's sides could someday be lined with houses with individual hangers.

The commercial hanger (not pictured here) remains to this day: Ralph Horn's distant dream of a "Hanger Community" (residences lined up on a landing strip) is still possible! :)

[Acres per Second]

You read it here first! :)

The entire airport property has been re-sold to the Marriott Family: The price is yet unknown.

The seller, an insider, paid $750,000 for the airport in 1995—on a literal handshake with Ralph Horn.

The Marriotts own a huge chunk of contiguous waterfront properties on Tuftonboro Neck (in sight of the airport) and have been looking to buy abutters' properties which have much calmer waters on which to waterski. :rolleye2: One recent photo shows one end of the existing estate (http://www.winnipesaukee.com/forums/showpost.php?p=81202&postcount=4), so the Marriotts aren't likely to rebuild the airport or to replant the area in forest. :(

BTW: I just learned that it was a Marriott executive who encouraged Mitt Romney to buy a Wolfeboro waterfront place ten years ago.

Since groundbreaking and dynamiting early last year, that one lakefront lot is still under construction with the usual McMansion on a lot that extends about 300' wide, and extends nearly 400' from the water's edge.

Lot sales have been non-existant, with the "model home" (below) rarely visited. It may have been that rugged, winding, jarring start to a 4-mile-ride to Wolfeboro that failed the developer. At only 20', the lake is not particularly deep between the paired estates (Ayer's Point to Thomas Point), so a bridge constructed between the two Marriott mega-estates can't be ruled out.

Upon the 1995 airport tract's approval for development, the Town of Wolfeboro was promised that half of the land would remain as original forest "In Perpetuity".

So far, so good. :look:

The saga continues:
Will it be bulldozed once again?
Will Ralph Horn's memorial headstone be moved once again?
Or will there be a "Marriott-Wolfeboro Airport"? :cool:

[tis]

If it is all true, Acres, your last question is very interesting. I do know that years ago the sons wanted to build an airport by their existing property but JW said over his dead body. So now may be the time. JW (first) has been gone for quite a few years now.

[mcdude]

Acres Per Second: I've looked everywhere for photos to add to this interesting thread but this is all I've come up with!
http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/531/medium/airport1.JPG

[Acres per Second]

Thanks for finding that.

It's interesting that the final name for the airport was "The Lakes Region Airpark", and not what's printed there. I've sent out a few feelers to determine what date that matchbook was first seen. For a possible date on that matchbook cover, you've got me studying phillumeny on the Internet—the collection of matchbook covers.

What started that study was the appearance of the striking surface on the "front" of the matchbook: I recall that feature was phased out some years ago. That unsafe feature was very handy when lighting-off a backyard pile of dry brush when you would want to throw the whole lighted matchbook, but be far enough from the pile when using old gasoline as a starting fluid! :eek:

The last possible date, it turns out, was 1975 of a phase-out that began in 1965—so now those phone numbers need some work. My immediate neighbor didn't recall that matchbook either, but I remember the "420" number as being the lakeside residence abutting the floatplane ramps, as pictured in the aerial photo.

Where "740" rang may have been Merwin and Eleanor Horn's former Sewall Road winter residence, but might have been shared with the workshop—now razed—attached to the northern end of the T-hangers pictured here earlier. (A photo of the workshop appears below).

Just when the telephone numbers changed to the usual seven digits in Wolfeboro I don't recall, but based on a list of Wolfeboro emergency numbers I've saved, it may have been in the late 50s.

Edited to update:
That match company started in 1954, and ceased operations in 1964.

Wolfeboro may have converted to convential telephone numbers as late as 1964! When I return to the lake, I can do some more sleuthing—with the list saved from that era.

What was remarkable is that I apologized to my immediate neighbor about not having a telephone back then. Her reply was that, "None of us had telephones back then". :eek: (So why ruin Paradise with "modern communications", anyway). ;)

In truth, appearing at the doorstep with the question, "Y'wannago waterskiing today?" was always a great way to start off a sunny day on Winnipesaukee. :) (Though we also skied in drizzle and rain wearing ski goggles! :emb:)

I've learned that "Merwin" (as we knew him—not Ralph) is how his family still refers to him, and that Eleanor was an immigrant from Nova Scotia. I recall Eleanor being particularly giddy many years ago about Rt 16 being widened all the way from Rochester, which would "bring more customers to the airport". :rolleye1:

So...I'm sending more "feelers" out on this to peg the date closer than the late 50s—my best guess today. :look:

The Airpark's heated, and quite-serious aircraft workshop, photographed in 2004:

[mcdude]

http://www.winnipesaukee.com/photopost/data/15014/medium/airport2-25-2009_5_55_43_PM.JPG

[Acres per Second]

That this is from 1956 doesn't surprise me. This is the old grass landing strip, which was normal for the times and for the region. There was no telephone service—or even electricity service—ten years earlier.

The runway wasn't paved until years later. Having failed because of the freezing and heaving of underground springs, the runway was properly "plumbed" underneath and repaved the following year.

Even after decades of weekly mowings, the clear-cut seen at the lower right has slowly grown back. This property lies near the end of Forest Road. Forest Road got its name because it was a dark forested tunnel to drive through to reach the end. Though I have wandered through Forest Road's many forested acres, I can't recall that the clear-cut in the photo ever existed!

Not pictured there is the blue airpark hanger, added in 1979 and still in place today. The three-digit telephone number style went out by 1964.

The small-appearing shoreline "notch" at the most distant part of the runway is the opening to Johnson's Cove, which lies further to the right in this still-heavily-forested photo. The airport's developer—who bought much of Johnson's Cove—had a disagreement with the town regarding a property tax increase and, among other reasons, the whole works is now in foreclosure.

In 1956, Camp Wyanoke lay beyond that "notch", and reached nearly to Carry Beach. (Far right-hand corner of Winter Harbor, with Jockey Cove and Wolfeboro Bay lying beyond Carry Beach in the hazy distance). Aside from one lakefront lot, which now sports a McMansion, just one structure ( a "model home") has been built since the runway was torn up in 2006.

The huge grassy clearing across the water from the former Camp Wyanoke is most likely the Melanson property off Highland Terrace in Wolfeboro. Melanson is the local realtor family who, among current (and many other offerings), sold Rattlesnake Island lots subsequent to this brochure's printing.

Rattlesnake Island lies "just around the corner" from Wyanoke's Winter Harbor and—to relate it to this photo—would appear about a mile to the right of this photo.

[NoBozo]

Ah...Grasshopper. :D

It is the Antonov's radial engine that makes the difference.

Like the sound that a Harley-Davidson makes from its own antique design lineage, a radial engine makes a very distinctive sound: If it's flying over Winnipesaukee, you can detect it.

The radial engine sound has even produced a cottage industry in CD recordings. (You can listen on-line!)
http://www.spitcrazy.com/sounds_of_aviation.htm
http://rareaviation.com/raenfrso.html

One recording company has even added music to the sound:
http://sounddogs.com/results.asp? (Vocals!)

I don't know of any similar recordings of any other engine.

Too, it is the sound of our WWII American "Warbird" legacy. These designs produced engines of 3600+HP from a single engine. Here's the radial engine principle. (http://http://www.aviation-history.com/engines/radial.htm)

Like some boats on Winnipesaukee, Harley-Davidson motorcyclists try to project a kind of "Warbird" image. (Paint jobs, graphics, decals, leather jackets and "character"). It's just ridiculous that our Warbird legacy of WWII could be matched or experienced through paint jobs and appearances: think "poseur". All the other engine sounds that strike my ear at Winnipesaukee are projected through noisy Detroit-Iron exhaust pipes, housed in expensive fiberglass jukeboxes.

And the Antonov has never awakened me in the middle of the night.

APS

Thanks APS for the interesting thread. Speaking of recorded engine sounds, there is a (2) CD set of engine sounds of Classic Speedboats ("Powering The Classics") by Vertual Visit Rercordings, Brighton, MI 1996, that recorded the sounds of many of the well known antique mahogany speedboats.... quite a few of which reside on Winni. Many of these boats inherited their engines from WWI and WWII aircraft. No one has used an air cooled radial so far in a boat though.

Comparing old aircraft engines with modern GFBL engines is a stretch. None of the "Round"... (Radial)... engines, or even the water cooled V-12s found in Spitfires or P-51 Mustangs turn much faster than about 2800 RPM, and cruise at 2100 RPM, so the sound is nothing like todays big V-8s that turn over 8000 RPM in some cases.

One has to actually HEAR a big Radial start up from COLD, from just a few feet away to get an inkling of what facinates classic aircraft buffs. I would drive 100 miles just to get close to one when it starts up. :) I also like to hear the go fasts when thay start up as well. My wife says it's a guy thing. :look: NB

BTW: Favorite Old Coot pastime...."Lets Go To The Airport"...you never know what you might see... :)