MANSFIELD ─ Richland County has deeply connected with aviation ─ long before the Ohio Air National Guard is based at the Mansfield Lahm Reginal Airport.
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building is working on presenting the history ─ and asking for the public’s support ─ by opening a museum in downtown Mansfield. The Frank P. Lahm Aviation Museum will be located at the rear part of the building at 40 Park Avenue West, next to Mansfield Memorial Museum.
“Mansfield, because of where it’s situated and everything else, has a long, long history of being involved in aviation. And a lot of people were interested in aviation,” Scott Schaut said, curator for the aviation museum.
Schaut is also in charge of the Memorial Museum.
The exhibition will take visitors back to 1852, Schaut said, when the first balloon was inflated in the Square of Mansfield. It continues with Brig. Gen. Lahm’s connection with the area and the two World Wars.
According to the U.S. Air Force, Lahm was born in 1877 in Mansfield, where he attended public school. The aviator served in the military for more than 40 years and was the first military passenger on a Wright brothers’ plane.
Schaut said the museum will feature plenty of exhibits related to Lahm, including the uniform he wore when retiring in 1941, his certificates and photographs.
Lahm was trained in ballooning by his father, who was a balloonist. Schaut said he was the winner of the first balloon race between the French and the American Aero Club in 1906. The race, a trip from Paris to London, was joined by other 14 contestants from France, Germany and other countries.
Lahm flied not only the fastest but also the farthest. He landed by a cottage and sent a wire to report the landing.
Schaut said the museum will also display a portfolio that a group of local aviators presented to the federal government in 1940. They asked the government to build long runways at the airport because they knew the war in Europe would eventually end up in the U.S. Many of them were pilots in World War I.
The government took the aviators’ advice and started constructing the runways. While the project was not finished until the end of the war, Schaut said it makes the airport distinctive from others even today.
Other exhibits will include World War I aviation uniform and multiple locally produced military productions such as bombs. Schaut said the photographs and pieces of the first plane that crashed in Mansfield in 1934 will be part of the exhibition. It was an Army Air Corps’ mail plane.
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building has raised about $12,000 for the aviation museum. But the nonprofit recently found out it needs to replace the furnace, which will cost $9,000.
“I am like a dog with a bone. I’m not giving up,” Schaut said of the setback.
He is going to build six large cases for the exhibits from pine and oak. Each will cost about $5,000, much cheaper than buying from a vendor. To pay for the utility, putting up a new door and other expenses, Schaut said he still needs to raise $40,000.
While he was hoping to open the museum in the summer, Schaut said he has to wait until gathering enough funds. He hopes the community will welcome an aviation museum that could become another tourist spot in the area.
The public can contact him at 419-525-2491 with questions regarding the fundraising project.
