Oliver Parks

{{main|Parks Air College}}

Parks' career started as a Chevrolet salesman at the Gravois Motor corporation in St. Louis. He learned to fly in 1926.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/buy-your-plane-at-penneys-8036799/ |title=For a few magical years, it looked like every family would own an airplane. |first=Paul |last=Glenshaw |date=November 2013 |magazine=Smithsonian}} Combining his sales and piloting skills, Parks flew a Standard J with the Gravois Motor logo painted on the fuselage and wings.{{cite news|newspaper=St Louis Globe-Democrat|date=9 May 1926|title=Gravois Co. Using Plane To Advertise Chevrolet|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/572707276}}

A friend of Charles Lindbergh, Parks founded the Parks Air College at Lambert Field, St Louis, in 1927{{cite web |title=Timeline of Saint Louis University |url=https://www.slu.edu/timeline/ |website=Saint Louis University |accessdate=8 July 2020}} and quickly established higher standards for the amount and quality of training that student pilots were required to complete to earn their commercial pilot's certification.

Parks engaged in some aircraft manufacturing through Parks Air College (see below). The College (including manufacturing) was rolled into Detroit Aircraft Corporation and Parks later bought back the training operation.

In the late 1930s, with war brewing again in Europe, Parks convinced the United States Army Air Corps that the training program at his college could adequately prepare military pilots for combat missions. In October 1938, General Hap Arnold asked three top aviation school representatives (Oliver Parks, C. C. Moseley of the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, and Theopholis Lee of the Boeing School of Aeronautics) to establish an unfunded startup of Civilian Pilot Training Program schools at their own risk; all three agreed.{{cite book|title=The Army Air Forces in World War II, Volume Six Men and Planes|date=January 1983 |page=455|url=https://archive.org/details/Vol6MenAndPlanes-nsia|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|location=Washington, DC|isbn=091279903X}} In the event of war, Arnold intended to extend Air Force training capacity by relying on civilian schools for primary (i.e. the most basic) training. In 1939, Parks was brought to Alabama to set up a Civilian Pilot Training Program for the University of Alabama at Van de Graaff Field.{{cite book|title=The Arnold Scheme: British Pilots, the American South and the Allies' Daring Plan|first=Gilbert S.|last=Guinn|year=2007|publisher=The History Press|location=Charleston, SC|isbn=9781596290426}} In 1940, he leased all of Curtiss-Steinberg Airport (now St. Louis Downtown Airport) in Cahokia, Illinois, which was renamed Curtiss-Parks Airport, for his school.{{cite web |url=http://www.stlouisdowntownairport.com/history.htm |title=St. Louis Downtown Airport History |publisher=St. Louis Downtown Airport |accessdate=September 2, 2012}}{{cite web |url=http://www.airandspacemuseum.org/museum.html |title=Airport and Museum Building |publisher=Greater St. Louis Air and Space Museum |accessdate=September 2, 2012}} By the end of World War II, more than 37,000 cadets (more than 10% of the Air Corps cadets who entered primary training{{cite book|first=Bernard C.|last=Nalty|title=Winged Shield, Winged Sword: A History of the United States Air Force|page=255}} and "fully one-sixth of all U.S. Army pilots of the era") had received their primary flight instruction at a Parks school.

In 1946, having concluded that future aviation leaders would need a broader, more academic education and also out of gratitude for the aid given him by Jesuit priests after a 1927 crash, Parks gave the college named after him to Saint Louis University, a Jesuit institution located across the Mississippi River from Parks's Cahokia, Illinois campus. Parks Air College became the Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology of Saint Louis University.{{cite book|title=Aerospace Engineering Education During the First Century of Flight |last1=McCormick|first1=Barnes Warnock| first2=Conrad F. |last2=Newberry|first3=Eric|last3=Jumper|publisher=American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics|year=2004|location=Reston, VA|isbn=1563477106}}

In conjunction with Parks Air College, around 1929 Parks engaged in aircraft manufacturing, known for the Parks P-1 and Parks P-2, though this was never a very large business. These operations were folded into those of Detroit Aircraft Corporation. After bankruptcy, the heavier-than-air aircraft manufacturing activities of Detroit Aircraft Corporation were consolidated into Lockheed Aircraft.

In 1944, Parks conducted a nationwide survey to see what features the potential pool of 70,000 new post-war pilots would want in a personal aircraft.{{cite journal|journal=Popular Science|issn=0161-7370|title=The Plane You'd Like to Own|date=June 1944|volume=144|number=6|page=113}} When the wartime training program was phased out that year, he went to work for the Engineering and Research Corporation (ERCO). He came up with the novel idea to sell the ERCO Ercoupe monoplane in department stores, signing up Marshall Field & Company in June 1945, followed by Macy's, Bamberger's and other stores in the Midwest. He himself became the Midwest distributor for eight states. Initial sales were encouraging, but the postwar light-aircraft boom did not last, and the Ercoupe was not a commercial success.

After the war, Parks restructured his network of training schools into a company called Parks Aircraft Sales and Service (PASS), which operated fixed base operators and airports.{{cite journal|journal=Civil Aeronautics Board Reports |volume=7|pages=639–713|title=North Central Case|date=June 1946 – March 1947|url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/osu.32437011657737|hdl=2027/osu.32437011657737}} In 1946, PASS bought the Curtis-Steinberg Airport in Cahokia for $400,000 and renamed it Parks Metropolitan Airport.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/138619893 East Side C. of C. To Support Move For Airport Across The River, St Louis Post-Dispatch, 2 December 1946] The airport was a significant financial burden. In 1950, Parks said it had lost $70,000 in each of the prior three years and if the City of St. Louis was not willing to purchase it (as a reliever airport), he would need to subdivide it.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/769531868 Parks Plans To Subdivide His Airport, Belleville (IL) News-Democrat, 27 January 1950] In 1950 Parks resigned as president of PASS.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/138173192 Oliver Parks Quits As Head Of Aircraft Sales Firm, St Louis Post-Dispatch, 22 May 1950] He disposed of his stock thereafter, to stay in compliance with the CAB to avoid conflicts of interest with his shareholdings in Ozark Air Lines (see below). The largest remaining shareholder was St. Louis University. PASS tried to sell the airport to St. Louis as a reliever airport, given the facility's proximity to the city.[https://www.newspapers.com/image/139460265 City Facing Need for Secondary Airport Soon, Again to Consider Buying Parks Field on East Side, St Louis Post-Dispatch, 5 July 1953]

In 1959, with the airport experiencing financial difficulties, the facility closed and developers started to create a residential community on the property. However, only about 200 of the 2500 homes in the "St Louis Gardens" subdivision were built. The need for a secondary airport to take pressure off the overcrowded Lambert Field resulted in the property being purchased by the Bi-State Development Agency in 1965 and converted back into an airport. Parks returned as airport manager for two years at annual salary of $1.

{{main|Parks Air Lines}}

In 1944, Parks founded Parks Air Transport (PAT), through which he applied to the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB: the federal agency that at the time had tight control over almost all US air transport) for certification as a feeder or local service airline. In 1946 and 1947, the CAB awarded PAT the largest route network of any such applicant in significant part based on Parks's reputation. The routes were characterized as potentially the "richest" such feeder network. But Parks repeatedly delayed starting operation, saying he was unable to raise financing. In June 1949 the CAB started proceedings to potentially revoke the certification of the airline, by then renamed Parks Air Lines. In June 1950, shortly before the CAB gave its final ruling, PAL started service on a route from Parks Metropolitan Airport to Chicago, via St Louis and three central Illinois cities. The CAB revoked PAL's certification, and a federal appeals court declined to stop the CAB from enforcing the order pending a full appeal. In September Parks agreed to merge PAL into Ozark Air Lines, which at the time had no airline operation, but which had been awarded most of the PAL rights as a replacement carrier by the CAB. PAL's operation therefore became that of Ozark.

• [https://www.cusd187.org/o/wpms Oliver Parks Middle School] is a school in the [https://www.cusd187.org/ Cahokia Unit School District #187].

{{Reflist}}

• [http://www.slu.edu Saint Louis University]
• The St. Louis University Libraries have many searchable photos of Oliver Parks and his aviation activities: {{cite web|url=http://digitalcollections.slu.edu/digital/collection/photos|website=digitalcollections.slu.edu|title=Photo Collection - Archives|publisher=St. Louis University Libraries Digital Collections|access-date=30 June 2024}}

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Category:American aviators

Category:American aviation businesspeople

Category:1899 births

Category:1985 deaths