The Parker D. Cramer airport was the first municipal airport in the U. S. It was located in the area to the north of the present-day Clarion Bi-Lo store. There were a few planes there up to at least 30 - 40 years ago, I think. I believe Parker D. was a WWI ace.
"Shorty" Cramer moved to Clarion in 1920 and established his air mail plane service here.
Source: Mr. Lee Banner, a site visitor
The airport, built as a joint venture with federal and local funds, was named in Cramer's honor after he and his crew were lost on a route-mapping flight over the North Sea. Cramer once flew a plane through the hangar, from end to end. Among other historic flying stunts was an attempt to fly off from Sixth Avenue in Clarion. It ended in a crackup, but he emerged unhurt.
Cramer died in 1931. In 1932, papers belonging to Cramer were found floating in the sea off the Shetland Islands. Included were a letter to his mother, his pilot's license, and a description of the plane in which he was making his fatal, final flight.
Cramer's historic Stinson Monoplane was rescued by helicopter from its forty-year resting place on the Greenland ice cap where Cramer had landed it safely, but out of fuel, during one of his great circle exploratory flights.
Source: Supplemental History of Clarion County
The Bradford Landmark Society (McKean County, PA) has a very good biography of Parker Cramer on its Web site. (Note: There is no return link from there to here.)
Parker Cramer is mentioned in an on-line biography of Sir Hubert Wilkins as a member of Wilkins' team surveying the Antarctic.
