In 2019, the McDonough Voice graciously allowed me to submit an article to the paper about the contributions that our father, Gene Douglas, made to local aviation and to Macomb Municipal Airport. The occasion was, at that time, the 50th anniversary of the opening of the long-awaited city airport.
Now, seven years later, I write for The Community News Brief, and am currently helping spotlight major events in McDonough County over the years, given that the county is celebrating its 200th birthday this year.
As part of my writings, I am doing a brief history on local aviation, and recently wrote about Macomb’s first airport east of the city known as Clugstons. My second story was a synopsis of the process it took for Macomb to eventually construct a municipal airport north of the city, and quite a process it was.
It is amazing to me that in its 57 year history, Macomb Municipal Airport has only had two managers. Gene Douglas and Lee Cobb.
My last part of the series will cover Lee’s years at the airport. On behalf of my brothers and I, we appreciate the opportunity to tell dad’s story. We would also like to congratulate Macomb and Lee for the awards the airport has won and the praise it continues to garner from pilots both near and far.
My dad was hired in 1968 to be the first manager of the new airport, a job he would hold for the next 16 years.
Since my brothers and I were there to live it, here is that story.
Gene Douglas was the first manager of the new Macomb Municipal Airport and served as manager from 1968-1984.
Dad was born to fly, so being hired for this job was his dream come true. After his death in 2015, I found a photo of him as a young boy of 12. He was standing proudly in front of his bicycle dressed in a Charles Lindbergh outfit, with laced boots up to his knees and an aviator’s
and helmet and goggles. Our dad was happiest when in the cockpit of an airplane.
When dad was hired to run the airport our family of seven moved from rural Bushnell. We previously lived out five or so miles on the Murphy Blacktop on our grandfather’s farm. To learn that we were moving to Macomb came as quite a shock. It brought five more school children to Macomb, with my two older brothers enrolling at the Western Lab School and the last three of us becoming a part of District 185. Macomb School District had a high school of over 1,000 students at that time.
We moved before the airport was even built. The ground was being graded, the fuel tanks still sat above ground, and the hangar and office building were just concrete footings. Our mother, not wanting to take us out of Bushnell schools mid-year, got permission to drive us from Macomb to Bushnell and back every day from March until the end of the school year.
Because I was only 11 when we moved to the “airport house,” and I want my facts to be accurate, I am using James Hayne’s book,“Shadows of Wings” as a reference. He interviewed our father for this book, as well as many other local aviators. His book is amazingly detailed.
Dad became seriously interested in flying in 1945 at the age of 17 (but I believe he dreamed about flying long before that, having in his wardrobe a Charles Lindbergh outfit). Two of his Bushnell/Marietta farm neighbors, Floyd Ridle and Eldon Wheeler, were taking lessons at Macomb Airport.
He received much of his early instruction from Russell Steinmetz, and soloed in that year. He then earned his commercial license at Kankakee in 1963, and in 1964, he obtained an instructor’s rating. In 1965, he earned his instrument rating and in that same year his instrument instructor’s rating. In 1966, he obtained his multi-engine rating and later a multi-engine instructor rating. All of his advanced ratings were earned under aviation icon L.B. Lundry at Canton Airport.
A major part of his aviation legacy was the sheer number of people he taught to fly. He was the flight instructor for literally hundreds of student pilots at Galesburg Airport, Monmouth Airport, Runyan Airport, the old Macomb Airport and finally the new Macomb Airport. Dad was very proud that many of his flight students went on to become commercial airline pilots, including his own son, Tom Douglas. Tom is a Captain pilot for UPS.
In 1973 dad’s business, Douglas Aviation, gained approval as a Part 141 flight school from the FAA, which allowed it to perform VA and ROTC flight training.
This attracted students to Macomb from all areas of the world, including Mexico and England.
In addition to his flight school, charters became the revenue backbone of Douglas Aviation. Those were the boom days of WIU concerts, and dad, along with other local pilots, were many times the charter pilot for celebrities coming to Western to perform.
They would pick them up, usually in Chicago, and fly them to the cornfields of Macomb. Performers such as Red Skelton, Bob Hope, George Bush Senior, the Doobie Brothers, Tanya Tucker, Burl Ives and Sargent Shriver all passed through the airport at Macomb. This writer got to accompany her father on a trip during which singer Harry Chapin and his wife were passengers.
Other charter passengers of Douglas Aviation were local factory executives, county prisoners and many ambulance patients going to Mayo’s Hospital.
My brothers and I recall there was always work to be done at the airport. In some capacity, we all had jobs. We cleaned toilets, mopped floors, filled vending machines, painted whatever needed to be painted. My brothers mowed grass in the summer and shoveled snow in the winter. The winters in the 1970s were harsh, and during some major historical snowstorms Macomb Municipal Airport was the only area airport kept open, due to round-the-clock shoveling.
The airport hours were long, as dad felt he needed to be on the job from sun up to sundown. We were fortunate as a family over the years that with as many hours as dad flew (over 26,000) he was never in a serious accident.
There were some somber times during dad’s time as airport manager. The aviation community was pretty much extended family. About a half dozen times over the 16 years, word would reach the airport that somewhere in the United States, a pilot from the local area had lost their life in a plane accident.
Those were very sad times for us and our house was very quiet.
The Douglas “kids” still attend the airport’s fly-in breakfasts, and yes, the airport still feels like home.
Gary, John (deceased), Cheryl, David and Tom Douglas
Credits - James Haynes book Shadow of Wings, The Mcdonough Voice, Douglas Family photos.
