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About Clarion County
Parker Cramer with one of his planes at the Clarion airport

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.

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