Slate Hill International Airport

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“Slate Hill International Airport – ‘Fly Me’ – Howard Doland, Prop.”

If you lived near Slate Hill, NY in the 1970’s, this sign hung on a machinery shed near the edge of the road… McBride Road.

For years the sign served as a “marker” for a variety of purposes… for instance, it served as a landmark, a token, a destination among the few… I remember a (what we called) a “road rally”. One of the things each contestant had to find was the sign, “Slate Hill International Airport”. We could see the driver and his partner stop along the road looking up at the sign… then checking off the their “prize” on the clipboard.

Does anyone remember?

My Dad, whom we dubbed “the Flying Farmer”, loved to fly. After WW II, he began his small-plane flying lessons at Randall Airport near Middletown, NY. “Mack” was his flight instructor.

I don’t remember those days… you see, I was born in 1953, which was a number of years after he received his pilot’s license. But as I was growing up, flying became a pleasant outing I enjoyed with my father. Many a Sunday afternoon we spent at (then known as) Montgomery Airport (now Orange County Airport).

There were times when he rented a plane. Then there were other times we’d hang out in the lounge area, chatting with other aviators… chatting with a cousin (who served drinks or food to other patrons)… drinking soda… watching small planes shoot landings… Cessna’s, Piper Cubs and other aircraft land and take off… land and take off.

My dad didn’t own a plane at the time. He was a dairy farmer… and his work as a farmer had to support two households — his own and also the household of his parents. Growing up, we weren’t poor — but we weren’t rich either. Essentially, we didn’t know any different… Nearly everyone living in our small town in the 1960’s didn’t have much more than our family. So we fit right in!

Back to Montgomery Airport…

My Dad, on occasion (when he had a few extra bucks) would rent one of the Cessna’s (his preference), for maybe 1/2 hour. That may have been all he could afford. Sometimes I would go with him… sometimes a friend might go for a ride with him. I would stay back at the small lounge area amusing myself.

Then, around 1968, eminent domain took a small corner of his farmland to build Interstate 84. Looking for a local source of gravel and bank run, my father contracted with the “powers-to-be of road construction” to have them start hauling gravel out of a hay field. The field had a hill so steep that he would have easily rolled his Farm-all tractor. The hill was virtually useless as far as farming goes.

So, out went the hill eventually making room for a nice runway…

Oh, I didn’t tell you… the money he received for that bank run bought him his dream… a Cessna 172.

No more trips to Montgomery to rent a plane to fly… he could park his Cessna right in the field behind his barn!

If he desired, he could fly every day or evening – after finishing milking his cows and eating his supper…

So, the story of the sign…

My Mom had this sign made for my Dad. He hung it up on the entrance to his barnyard, on his machinery shed… “Slate Hill International Airport” and above his name (now faded in the photo) “Fly Me” (a slogan used by TWA, Trans-World Airlines)

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