Pearson Air Museum

Less than two years after the Wright brothers made history, a small field at Vancouver Barracks became an air field. role in the development of U.S. air power and general aviation in the Pacific Northwest.

In 1924 it was an intermediate stop for the Army’s “round the world flight” and in 1937 was the internationally acclaimed journey’s first landing of the World’s first transpolar, non-stop flight over the North Pole by Russia.

Pearson Air Field located next to the museum, still active today is one of the oldest operating air fields in the United States. A normal year sees over 52,000 aircraft operations of mostly small single-engine type planes taking off and soaring away to destinations near and far.

The museum itself though small is one of the best designed air museums in the country with a carefully orchestrated walk through the role of flight centered around Pearson Field and beyond.

Six years later the field was declared an “Aviation Camp” by the U.S. Army and in 1912 it was the scene for the first U.S. Post Office sanctioned airmail flight and the first interstate flight between Washington and Oregon.

On April 6, 1917 the United States entered into WWI and soon work began just west of Pearson Field to build the largest spruce milling operation in the world, producing enough lumber for 300 airplanes. By 1923, the air field had become recognized as a major airport and U.S. Army Air Base, playing a key