The airport
The early days of the airport and its 1930s air shows.
This chapter tells the story of the early days of the Willows-Glenn County Airport and the fly-ins of the 1930s.
Jump to the timeline of the whole story.
Building the airport
- About 1928
- A first airstrip is built in Willows, on the site of today’s Glenn Medical Center. The exact year is not certain.
- October 1928
- The Airways Division of the U.S. Department of Commerce picks a site west of Willows for an Intermediate Landing Field on the Seattle–Los Angeles air mail route. Glenn County buys an 80-acre tract for about $2,000, the City of Willows buys the adjoining 80 acres for $2,092.80, and the land is leased to the Commerce Department, which puts up another $8,000 for construction and equipment.
- 1929
- The U.S. Department of Commerce builds the Willows-Glenn County Airport as an intermediate landing field on the Seattle–Los Angeles air mail route. Its Airways Division appoints Floyd Nolta as manager. The field lighting is finished by January 10, and the town dedicates its airport with a two-day celebration in June.
- The early 1930s
- The Department of Commerce is unhappy that the runway floods in winter and threatens to move the airport. Glenn County citizens hold fundraisers, including a local production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, to improve it. Until 1932 the field is limited to emergency landings.
- April 17, 1930
- Nolta is sworn in as a special deputy and becomes Glenn County’s first flying officer. Each county appointed one to enforce aviation laws before federal rules took over.
- 1932
- Local civic leaders, including Nolta, raise money through the American Legion and the Achaean Club and buy the airport from the Department of Commerce. Nolta stays on as manager, and Willows Flying Service moves into the first hangar built there.
- 1934 and 1935
- New Deal money arrives. In 1934 the Civil Works Administration gives the airport $5,000 to build a hangar, and in 1935 the Public Works Administration, one of 250 airports it funds, gives $10,819 for hangar and runway improvements.
- The 1930s
- Nolta stages annual air shows that grow into the largest in Northern California. With other ag flying services based there too, Willows becomes the busiest airport in Northern California without commercial airline service.
- 1940 and 1941
- An additional 125 acres is added in 1940. In October 1941 the Army awards the Sacramento construction firm Teichert a $140,000 contract to build a second runway, in preparation for taking over the field.
- 1942
- The Army Air Forces takes over the airport as an auxiliary field for Chico Field, and Willows Flying Service moves to its own land about four miles north of town, near Artois.
The beacon tower
As an Intermediate Landing Field, the airport began as little more than a 51-foot steel tower with a shed beside it, a concrete directional arrow, a grass runway running north and south, and field lights. The tower was finished in late 1928 and made by the International Derrick and Equipment Company of Columbus, Ohio. Willows was the twelfth beacon north of San Francisco, marked on the ground as “12 SF-S.”
The beacon was a 24-inch rotating light that flashed a single clear beam every six seconds. A 1,000-watt bulb and a two-foot mirror produced about a million candlepower, visible from 15 to 40 miles, powered by Pacific Gas & Electric. Green course lights on the tower flashed dot-dot-dash, the Morse letter U, to mark Willows as the second 100-mile section north of San Francisco. Clear 15-watt lights every 300 feet lined the runway edge, with green lights at each end to guide pilots in at night.
The tower still stands where it was built and still carries the airport’s rotating beacon. It is the only 51-foot air mail route tower still in use at its original airport in California.
The air shows of the 1930s
Newspaper clippings show that Willows hosted large annual air shows at the airport in the 1930s, usually as benefits for the airport and run by local civic groups.
- November 11, 1931
- An Armistice Day air show billed as Northern California’s biggest, sponsored by the Willows American Legion Post and the Achaean Club, with proceeds for airport improvements. Stunt flying, air races, dead-stick landings, parachute jumps, and passenger flights ran all day, with an Aviators Ball the night before. Admission was 25 cents and parking was free. The Sacramento Bee reported preparations for a crowd of 2,500 and about 25 planes.
- September 9–10, 1933
- An airport dedication and air show, sponsored by the Willows Chamber of Commerce, the Achaean Club, and the local American Legion post. The program included an air parade, stunting, aerial combats, parachute jumping, bomb dropping, smoke writing, and joy hops. An aviation ball drew 350 couples, and stamp collectors nationwide mailed in for special dedication covers.
- Late September 1937
- The 7th Annual Northern California Air Show, a two-day event. Speed Nolta flew three Willows women who won a popularity contest to San Francisco to invite the mayor. The paper called Willows the busiest airport in northern California outside the airline hubs.
- September 24–25, 1938
- The 8th Annual Northern California Air Show, run by the Northern California Airshow Association, with Nolta as airport superintendent. Parachute jumps, upside-down flying, air races, and fireworks. About 60 planes came the year before, and 75 were expected.
The Army years
Willows was one of several small fields that served Chico Army Airfield. On September 11, 1941, the Army leased the original 160-acre municipal airport north of Chico from the city, and the field opened as the Chico Army Flying School on April 15, 1942. Under the Army Air Forces Training Command it trained more than 5,000 cadets and officers in basic trainers such as the Vultee BT-13 and BT-15.
To handle the heavy traffic of takeoffs, landings, and pattern work, Chico managed a network of auxiliary fields across the region:
- Vina, in Tehama County, now Deer Creek Ranch Airport
- Orland Auxiliary Field No. 1, in Glenn County, now Haigh Field Airport
- Willows Auxiliary Field, in Glenn County, now Willows-Glenn County Airport
- Kirkwood, Campbell, Oroville, and Redding fields
At Willows, the War Department leased 318.2 acres from Glenn County in 1942. The only improvement was the asphalt runway. The Fourth Air Force declared the Willows field excess to its needs on July 24, 1944, and the lease ended on June 11, 1945.
The Army declared Chico excess and closed it on December 31, 1945, and it returned to the city as the municipal airport.
Since the war
After the Army’s lease ended in 1945, the airport went back to civilian use, and in the 1950s it became the base for the first air tanker squadron and, for the Forest Service, the center of aerial firefighting in the region, until the Forest Service moved to Chico in 1982. We have found little on construction at the field after 1942. The county’s records show a first master plan adopted by the Board of Supervisors in November 1979, a Comprehensive Airport Land Use Plan adopted in 1990, and an Airport Layout Plan approved by the FAA in 2003 and revalidated in 2004. The latest master plan the county lists is the Willows-Glenn County Airport Master Plan, adopted August 19, 2008, which has the current layout plan drawings and describes the earlier plans in its first chapter. If you know when the hangars, the fuel station, the fixed base operator (FBO), Nancy’s Airport Cafe, or runway improvements were built, we would like to hear it.
The airport today
Willows-Glenn County Airport (KWLW) is a public-use airport owned by Glenn County, about a nautical mile west of downtown Willows. It sits at 141 feet above sea level and has two asphalt runways, set in a V: 16/34, 4,125 by 100 feet, and 13/31, 3,788 by 60 feet. In the 12 months ending December 31, 2021, it logged 29,500 general aviation operations, an average of 81 a day, with 39 based aircraft: 36 single-engine, one multi-engine, one jet, and one helicopter. The building area has about 45 hangars of various sizes and conditions, Nancy’s Airport Cafe, and fixed base operators that serve agricultural flying. In October 2023 the airport was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The air show details come from 1930s newspaper clippings, which you can open in the archives. The Army years are drawn from the Military Standard’s page on Chico Army Airfield and the Air Force Historical Research Agency’s record of the Willows auxiliary field. The 1928 to 1941 details on the site selection, beacon tower, dedication, fundraising, funding, and runway come from period newspapers (the Chico Enterprise, May 22, 1928; the Chico Record, October 4, 1928; the Morning Times and Red Bluff Sentinel, July 20, 1928; the Sacramento Bee, January 11 and April 20, 1929; the Appeal-Democrat of Marysville, June 3, 1929, and September 25, 1940; the Oroville Mercury Record, March 2, 1934, and October 30, 1935; and the Tehama County News, October 31, 1941), the U.S. Department of Commerce Aeronautics Branch Airways Bulletin No. 1 (1931), and the Arrows Across America page on the Willows beacon. The airport today figures are from the FAA Airport Form 5010, and the planning history and hangar count from the Willows-Glenn County Airport Master Plan (adopted August 19, 2008): its table of contents and Chapter 1, Background and Inventory. The Willows Airport Land Use Plan (1990) is posted on the county’s airport documents page. Nolta’s appointments and the later air shows are drawn from the Sacramento Bee (“Floyd Nolta Appointed Manager of Willows Field,” 1929), the Appeal-Democrat of Marysville (“Glenn Co. Appoints Flying Officer,” April 17, 1930), the San Francisco Examiner (“Willows to Open Aviation Fete Saturday,” September 25, 1937), and George Nolta’s family biography, Floyd “Speed” Nolta: An Aviation Pioneer.
The whole story on one timeline
From 1918 to Doolittle Day. Each entry is tagged with the chapter that tells its story.
- 1918The farmers
Floyd Nolta, a garage mechanic in Willows, enlists in the Army and is sent to Rockwell Field in Coronado, where one of the instructor pilots is Jimmy Doolittle. They become lifelong friends.
- February 20, 1920The students
Korean Americans open the Willows Korean Aviation School in Glenn County to train pilots for the Korean independence movement.
- June 22–24, 1920The students
The school’s first two airplanes arrive in Willows.
- July 5, 1920The students
The Willows Korean Aviation School celebrates its grand opening.
- October 1920The students
A flood destroys the rice fields of Kim Chong Lim, the school’s main backer.
- April 1921The students
The Willows Korean Aviation School closes after a little over a year.
- 1927The farmers
Floyd and Dale Nolta start Willows Flying Service and begin spraying crops in Glenn County.
- 1928 to 1929The farmers
Nolta seeds rice from the air. The earliest photograph is dated April 1, 1929.
- 1929The airport
The U.S. Department of Commerce builds the Willows-Glenn County Airport on the Seattle–Los Angeles air mail route, and Nolta is appointed manager.
- 1931The farmers
About 50,000 acres of Sacramento Valley rice are planted by airplane in a single year.
- November 11, 1931The airport
An Armistice Day air show, billed as Northern California’s biggest, raises money for the airport.
- 1932The airport
Local civic leaders buy the airport from the Department of Commerce.
- September 9–10, 1933The airport
The airport is dedicated with an air show and an aviation ball. The Chamber of Commerce is among the sponsors.
- September 19–20, 1936The airport
The 6th Annual Northern California Air Show.
- September 1937The airport
The 7th Annual Northern California Air Show.
- September 24–25, 1938The airport
The 8th Annual Northern California Air Show.
- March 30–31, 1942The raiders
Five Doolittle Raider crews practice short takeoffs at Willows before boarding the USS Hornet.
- April 15, 1942The airport
Chico Army Flying School opens. Willows serves as one of its auxiliary fields.
- April 18, 1942The raiders
Sixteen B-25 bombers launch from the Hornet and strike Japan.
- 1942The airport
The Army Air Forces takes over the airport as an auxiliary field for Chico.
- October 15, 1942The raiders
Japanese forces execute Raiders Hallmark, Farrow, and Spatz in Shanghai.
- December 31, 1945The airport
The Army closes Chico Army Airfield and returns it to the city.
- July 24, 1944The airport
The Fourth Air Force declares the Willows auxiliary field excess. The Army’s lease ends June 11, 1945.
- 1949The students
The Republic of Korea Air Force is founded and later recognizes the Willows school as its forerunner.
- July 9, 1953The firefighters
The Rattlesnake Fire in Powder House Canyon, about 28 miles northwest of Willows, kills 15 firefighters. The loss leads Mendocino National Forest fire control officer Joe Ely to look for a way to fight fires without putting so many people at risk.
- Spring 1955The firefighters
Joe Ely, fire control officer of the Mendocino National Forest, looks for a way to use agricultural aviation on wildfires. He takes the idea first to airport manager Lee Sherwood, then to Floyd Nolta.
- July–August 1955The firefighters
Vance Nolta flies a Stearman fitted with a water tank, first on a test fire at the Nolta airstrip and then on the Mendenhall Fire, the first free-fall drop on a wildfire.
- 1956The firefighters
Eight pilots and seven aircraft form the Mendocino Air Tanker Squad, the first operational air tanker squadron in the United States. Lee Sherwood flies the Piper Tri-Pacer Bird Dog, directing the tankers. The squad fights 12 fires in its first month, August.
- 1959The firefighters
Heavy air tankers carrying 2,000 gallons of retardant enter service.
- January 12, 1961The archives
General Doolittle gives a talk to the Rotary Club in Gridley.
- September 12, 1981The firefighters
The fourth annual Willows Fly-In honors the 25th anniversary of air tanker operations.
- 1982The firefighters
The Forest Service moves its regional air tanker operations from Willows to Chico, because larger aircraft need a longer runway.
- 2019The students
The remains of Willows Korean Aviation School co-founder Lee Jae-su are reinterred in South Korea.
- April 6, 2023The airport
The airport’s National Register of Historic Places nomination appears on a City of Willows agenda.
- October 6, 2023The airport
The airport is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
- October 24, 2026The airport
A talk on the history of the Willows-Glenn County Airport by Ted Atlas of San Jose, at the Chico Air Museum.
- March 30–31, 2027The raiders
The 85th anniversary of the Raiders’ training at Willows.
- October 16, 2027The fly-in
Doolittle Day: the fly-in at the Willows-Glenn County Airport.
This chapter is being built. Stories, photographs, clippings, interviews, and film will appear here as we collect them. Check back soon.
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