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Air Service Hangar

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1936. DE 273 and Centerpoint Blvd.
  • Air Service Hangar (W. Barksdale Maynard)
  • Air Service Hangar (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
  • (Photograph by Matthew Aungst)

The abandoned hangar is all that remains of Bellanca Airfield, famous in aviation history. Henry Belin du Pont, avid promoter of flight, purchased a 360-acre farm and lured legendary, Italian-born aircraft designer Giuseppe Bellanca from Staten Island in 1928. In a factory here, Bellanca would build more than 1,000 airplanes, including Miss Veedol, first to cross the Pacific nonstop (1931). The Air Service, Inc., hangar—the original of 1928 was replaced by this one after a fire—was not officially part of the Bellanca factory but was used by public pilots. Bellanca remained in business until 1954. In later years, Centerpoint Boulevard was built down the main runway and the site developed for business. The lone surviving hangar (closed 1960) was threatened with demolition in 2003, but a grassroots group mobilized to save it.

Writing Credits

Author: 
W. Barksdale Maynard
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Data

What's Nearby

Fox Lodge at Lesley Manor (Allen Lesley House)
Garden
Amstel House
Kensey Johns House
James Booth House

Citation

W. Barksdale Maynard, "Air Service Hangar", [New Castle, Delaware], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/DE-01-NC5.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Delaware

Buildings of Delaware, W. Barksdale Maynard. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2008, 149-149.

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