Art & History

I was revisiting my stored artwork files and pulled out this graphite/colored pencil drawing I did of an old building in Garland Prairie, Arizona in 1972. It was near the forest service road but all alone in a pasture of several acres. I always figured it was part of an old abandoned airfield. It was torn down sometime in the late 1980's.
Curiosity compelled me to go online and see if any information might be found on these old airfields. These were the early day Air Mail Routes across the United States in the 1930's and 1940's. Charles Lindbergh was one of the first air mail pilots of this era.
According to an interesting website: Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Northern Arizona : Paul Freeman. On his website is the description of the old Winona Airfield that was part of the Los Angeles - Amarillo Airway. I image that this old airfield was part of that airway as the building has LA - A on the roof identifying it as such. So this airfield may have been a part of the Los Angeles - Amarillo airways in the mid 1930's. These sites were for emergency situations and provided aviation fuel and emergency supplies. I sent a query email including a photo of my drawing to the website owner, and he believes that the site wasn't an airfield but an airway beacon house for aircraft flying the airway route.