100 Years Ago: Lethbridge Aircraft Company
Photograph of an unidentified biplane that landed on the Blakiston Flats at Waterton Lakes National Park in 1920. Pilot Jock Palmer was known to visit the area and sell five minute rides to anyone willing to pay $5 for the experience of flying in the mountains.
Galt Museum & Archives: 20151083099
In the early days of aviation, Lethbridge was poised to take advantage of this revolutionary technology. The earliest commercial airline venture dates back to 1920, long before Lethbridge’s Time Air airline was established in 1966. The 1920s aviation venture was called the Lethbridge Aircraft Company. Just like other small airline businesses in Europe and the Americas, the Lethbridge company focused on two main service areas: passenger transportation and mail delivery. Captain Jock Palmer and Lieutenant Harry Fitzsimmons were the managing directors with a recently purchased Curtiss JN-4, also known as a Curtiss Jenny, as the company’s first aircraft.
Pilot Jock Palmer (right) and co-pilot Harry Fitzsimmons (left) posed in front of their Curtiss JN-4 (Can), circa 1920.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19705222000
People looking at Jock Palmer and Harry Fritzsimons' Curtiss JN4 Aircraft near their Aerodrome, Lethbridge, July 1921. Copyright Glenbow Archives.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19871161000
An unidentified person, possibly A. MacLeod, in a Curtiss JN-4 with an aerial survey camera mounted on the fuselage just below the pilot's cockpit, circa 1914-1918.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19891068084
Four Curtiss JN-4D aircraft flying in formation.
Galt Museum & Archives, 19981068017-012
The capital to fund the company was raised locally. A public offering of 100 equal shares of $100 each was advertised in the Lethbridge Herald. The message of the Lethbridge Aircraft Company was load and clear: support your own community-owned airline or risk competitors taking over the market. The ad pointed out that twenty-odd aviation companies were already operating in Canada.
Meanwhile, staff and infrastructure were being quickly put in place. The company announced receiving three applications for pilot training in April 1920, with one application of note from an unnamed woman hailing from a town east of Lethbridge. The plot of land south of the Exhibition Grounds was designated as the Lethbridge Aerodrome, the first officially recognized Lethbridge airport with a government license.
Despite all the excitement, this ambitious project did not pan out. The popular demand for air travel that the company’s founders anticipated was simply not there. The company tried to diversify by providing occasional air shows, securing aerial survey photography contracts and emergency service for affluent clients, but these side contracts were insufficient to sustain the operation. The company dissolved in 1925, but the promise of commercial air travel had taken hold in Lethbridge. Another company would realize that promise four decades later.
You can discover more about the history of aviation and flying in Lethbridge by searching our extensive collection of images on our online database. You can also learn more by coming in to read the Lethbridge Historical Society’s Occasional Paper No. 13, "Wings Over Lethbridge" by Bruce Gowans in the Archives’ reference library once we reopen to in-person visitation.