Rob—

I took a mental diversion break from work this afternoon and checked the Jesse Jones Web Site.  I opened Betty’s latest message to classmates and was pleasantly surprised to see the article about the restoration and re-opening of the old Houston Hobby Airport.    See web connection:   http://www.serve.com/drb9633/jessejones/Notes/HobbyTerminal.html

My Dad (as you know) was Chief (manager) of the Hobby Airport “tower” (Civil Aeronautics Administration, now FAA) from 1947 – until it closed and the airport operations were finally moved to Houston International north of town.  Seeing the photo brought back a lot of memories.

Coming from Garden Villas Elementary, I used to get off the school bus in front of the old Airport and go see my Dad at work.  I would climb the spiral stairs to the tower and sit in the air traffic controllers chairs and would be allowed to “blink” the green hand-held beacon that signaled a pilot that he was good to take-off.  The air traffic controllers would make me paper airplanes and I would stand on the airport mezzanine and fly them down into the lobby, hitting the waiting passengers.  As a boy scout, I would put on my uniform and wait in the lobby and pounce on disembarking passengers, trying to sell them tickets to the “boy scout” circus, held in the Houston Coliseum.

In 1961, the tower continued its air traffic control operations although the passenger facility was moved across the “field” to what is now regarded as Hobby.  I believe it was hurricane Carla that hit Houston in ’61.  I remember my Dad asking me to help him and others to “tape” the windows of the tower, so it wouldn’t blow out.  We were busy taping the windows when the wind blew shut the access door to the tower.  By 1961, the “open access” was curtailed and the door was always in the locked mode.  Only my Dad and a couple of others had keys to the door. Well, my Dad had left his keys on top of his desk in his office which was 30 feet below the tower.  We were locked in.  The windows were beginning to vibrate from the wind.  We didn’t know if the tape was going to hold.  There was no one else in the building and if my memory serves me, I think the telephone lines were down.  The only way out was through an outside emergency door and fire ladder (a simple steel rung ladder like you see on ships) that hung from the side of the building.  The wind was gusting to 65 mph.  One of the men, who had no family, volunteered to open the escape door and climb down the outside ladder to get the keys off my Dad’s desk.  We waited to what seemed forever, wondering if he safely made it.  We were relieved to hear a knock on the access door and then it opened.

That’s my memories of Houston’s original Hobby Airport.  Maybe others might find the memories interesting.

John Blair