Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 Color Slides

This collection consists of sixteen 35mm color slides of photographs taken by Kenneth Olsen showing the Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 at the Elko Airport in Nevada after its reconstruction by J. W. "Bill" Hackbarth and the Air Mail Pioneers.

Henry George Boonstra was flying Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 on December 15, 1922 when he crashed into Porcupine Ridge near Coalsville, UT. Boonstra was able to exit the badly damaged aircraft and seek help and the mail was eventually recovered, but the aircraft remained in place until it was located by J. W. "Bill" Hackbarth and retrieved in pieces by a local rancher and his son. Hackbarth and the Air Mail Pioneers Association planned to reconstruct the aircraft using as much of the original airplane as was useable in time for the 50th anniversary of the air mail service which was to be celebrated on May 15, 1968. After many months of work, a wildfire consumed Hackbarth's ranch and the Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 along with it. Hackbarth and the Air Mail Pioneers resumed work on the aircraft and located a new Liberty engine to replace the one that was destroyed thanks to the media attention that resulted from the story of the reconstruction and the fire. After the reconstruction was complete, Hackbarth flew "Old 249" on a transcontinental west to east flight, arriving in Washington, DC on May 9, 1968. Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 was donated to Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum by the Air Mail Pioneers and, as of August 1922, is currently on loan for display at the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum. Kenneth Olsen worked for Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, later Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, from around 1958 until the late 1990s. In 1968, Olsen was working at a seismic station in the Elko, Nevada area and took photographs of Dayton Wright DH-4 Mailplane #249 while it was at the Elko Airport.