Tuesday, July 15, 2014

How Cleveland lost the aircraft industry

According to a Plain Dealer article in 1928, Glenn Martin announced that he was moving his Cleveland aircraft factory to Baltimore, to develop the salt water operations the Navy required after WWI. Some Cleveland men had taken a gamble on him during the war, which brought the factory here in the first place, but after the war a “prominent corporate lawyer” consulted by leading businessmen concluded that commercial air travel was impractical and that the Navy would never put money into military airplanes except during wars and wars were no longer possible. Let’s find that “expert,” dig him up from Lake View or wherever he’s buried and pack him off to Baltimore. Or the west coast, where this all ended up anyway. (Feb. 5th, front page)

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