LOS ALAMOS HISTORY
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Learn / Research >
      • Information For Teachers
      • Teachers and Caregivers
      • Adult Resources >
        • National History Day
        • Homestead Driving Tour
        • History at Home
        • Pioneering Women in Los Alamos >
          • Archives and Collections Technician
        • Development of the Atomic Bomb
        • Links and Resources
      • Archive >
        • About the Archive
        • Research Appointments
        • Inside the Archives
        • Share Your Stories
        • COVID-19 Collecting
    • Careers/Jobs
    • Who We Are
    • Contact
  • Plan Your Visit
    • Museum Campus
    • Museum >
      • Exhibits >
        • Online and Temporary Exhibits
      • Victory Garden
      • Explore Los Alamos
    • Tours
    • Oppenheimer House
  • Programs
    • Upcoming Events
    • Lecture Series
    • Spring 2023 Tour to Trinity
    • History Award
    • Los Alamos / Japan Project
    • Volunteer Training
  • Donate
    • Membership
    • Donate to Projects
    • Legacy Society
    • Collections Donations
    • Donate Your Time- Volunteer
  • History Blog
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Children's Books & Gifts
    • Apparel
    • Gifts

​History Blog

​Pond Family Leaves Mark on Aviation History

3/29/2018

1 Comment

 
 By SHARON SNYDER
Los Alamos Historical Society
 
The first airplane to land on the Pajarito Plateau set down in a open field in 1928. It was flown by Ashley Pond Jr., founder of the Los Alamos Ranch School.
 
Pond had planned to volunteer for pilot training in World War I. He tried to enlist in the army, but at 45 he was turned down because of his age.
 
Undeterred, he handed over the reins of the ranch school to A. J. Connell and joined the Red Cross. He served in France as a canteen worker near the front lines, so close that he came under fire during the American attack at St. Mihiel. Unwilling to give up his dream of flying after returning home, Ashley eventually began flying lessons in 1928 with Bill Cutter, the year that Cutter Flying Service was started in Albuquerque. What could have been more tempting for Pond than to fly over the school he created and land in the outer fields?
Obtaining a pilot’s license inspired Pond to follow another dream, that of creating an airport. A sectional chart of 1935 shows Ashley Pond Airport—three dirt runways and a single building—located east of the present day Santa Fe Airport. Surviving maps that show his airport indicate that it wasn’t active past 1955, but it was significant in the beginnings of aviation in Santa Fe.
 
Two descendants of Ashley Pond Jr. were also enamored with flight. His daughter, Peggy Pond Church, experienced her first flight in an airplane in 1929, and her adventurous spirit led her to take lessons. She may have been inspired by her father, but it is more likely that she was influenced by the dynamic women pilots of the era that included Katherine Stinson and Amelia Earhart.
 
Church was still enraptured by the experience years later when she recalled taking those lessons “back in the days when Anne Lindbergh was in the news!” She continued until the owner of the plane crashed it and was killed. That brought the realization that “the mother of two small children had better practice keeping her feet on the ground.”
 
A third member of the Pond family took his interest in aviation to greater lengths. Dr. Ashley Pond III, son of the Los Alamos Ranch School founder and an early ranch school student himself, returned from serving in World War II and used the GI Bill to take flying lessons in 1947. He bought a two-seater Luscombe and learned to fly from Robert Lucas of Seven Bar Flying School, another early aviation service in Albuquerque.
 
The Luscombe was soon traded in for a Beachcraft Bonanza with room for his wife and four children, but that plane had other uses as well as pleasure. More importantly, his planes were used to fly patients from Taos, where he practiced medicine, to such sites in New Mexico as Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Truth or Consequences. He eventually acquired a turbocharged Piper Comanche and became instrument rated so as not to be deterred by weather when medical flights were necessary.
 
That old photograph of a bi-plane sending a dust cloud across an empty field has produced an interesting trail through history!

1 Comment
George C Mallinckrodt
7/29/2021 11:21:53 am

I was curious if the Ashley Pond Airport was used during 1943 to ferry scientists and army personnel to the Los Alamos site?

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    About

    These articles are written by the Los Alamos Historical Society Staff. Many of these articles were originally published by the
    ​Los Alamos Daily Post.  

    Categories

    All
    Ancestral Pueblo
    Archives
    Ashley Pond Jr.
    Atomic Energy Commission
    Bathtub Row
    Bathtub Row Press
    Bohr
    Camp May
    Cold War
    Community
    Dog
    Fallout Shelter
    Fuller Lodge
    Gardening
    Hans Bethe
    Helene Suydam
    Homer Pickens
    Homesteading
    Interns
    Jennet Conant
    John Saw Meem
    Katherine Stinson
    Los Alamos Ranch School
    Manhattan Project
    Martini
    Movie
    Museum
    Oppenheimer
    Pajarito Club
    Peggy Pond Church
    Pierottis' Clowns
    Raemer Schrieber
    Rose Garden
    Rover Project
    Severo Gonzales
    Sig Hecker
    Stan Ulam
    Trinity
    Walking Tour
    Women's Army Corp (WAC)
    World War II

    Archives

    March 2023
    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    November 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017

Home
About
Contact
Plan Your Visit
Shop
​Events
The Los Alamos Historical Society preserves, promotes, and communicates the remarkable history and inspiring stories of Los Alamos and its people for our community, for the global audience, and for future generations. 
Become a Member!
Los Alamos History Museum Logo
Picture
Picture
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Learn / Research >
      • Information For Teachers
      • Teachers and Caregivers
      • Adult Resources >
        • National History Day
        • Homestead Driving Tour
        • History at Home
        • Pioneering Women in Los Alamos >
          • Archives and Collections Technician
        • Development of the Atomic Bomb
        • Links and Resources
      • Archive >
        • About the Archive
        • Research Appointments
        • Inside the Archives
        • Share Your Stories
        • COVID-19 Collecting
    • Careers/Jobs
    • Who We Are
    • Contact
  • Plan Your Visit
    • Museum Campus
    • Museum >
      • Exhibits >
        • Online and Temporary Exhibits
      • Victory Garden
      • Explore Los Alamos
    • Tours
    • Oppenheimer House
  • Programs
    • Upcoming Events
    • Lecture Series
    • Spring 2023 Tour to Trinity
    • History Award
    • Los Alamos / Japan Project
    • Volunteer Training
  • Donate
    • Membership
    • Donate to Projects
    • Legacy Society
    • Collections Donations
    • Donate Your Time- Volunteer
  • History Blog
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Children's Books & Gifts
    • Apparel
    • Gifts