Pearson Air Museum facts for kids
Pearson Air Museum
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| Location | 1115 E 5th Street, Vancouver, WA 98661 |
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| Type | Aviation museum |
The Pearson Air Museum is an exciting place to learn about airplanes and flying! It's located at Pearson Field in Vancouver, Washington, USA. This museum is part of the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. The National Park Service takes care of it.
Visitors can explore the amazing history of aviation right where it happened. The museum shows off old planes and cool artifacts. These items tell the story of flying in the Pacific Northwest. You can even see the first plane flown by Leah Hing. She was the first Chinese American woman to earn a pilot's license!
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Discovering Aviation History
The museum has many interesting exhibits. They help you understand how flying changed over time. You can see how planes were built and used.
Planes and Pilots
The museum displays many objects from its collections. Some items are also on loan from other museums. Community members lend their artifacts too. These exhibits show the history of aviation in the Pacific Northwest. They help visitors imagine what it was like to fly in the early days.
World War I Aviation
One special exhibit is called "Straight-Grained Soldiers." It teaches you about aviation during World War I. This war happened a long time ago. Airplanes were very new then. They changed how battles were fought.
Spruce for Airplanes
During World War I, many airplanes were made from wood. Spruce wood was especially good for building planes. The Pacific Northwest had a lot of this special wood. So, the U.S. Military created the Spruce Production Division. Its main office was at Vancouver Barracks. This group made sure the allies had enough spruce for their aircraft.
A Busy Mill
At its busiest, the Spruce Mill worked all day and night. It produced a huge amount of lumber every day. This mill was located where Fort Vancouver and the Pearson Air Museum are today. The exhibit shows how the United States joined the war in 1917. It also explains the efforts made in Vancouver to help. You can learn how the Army Air Service was born after the war ended.
How the Museum is Managed
The National Park Service has always owned the Pearson Air Museum. For a while, the City of Vancouver helped manage it. They had an agreement with a group called the Fort Vancouver National Site Trust.
In 2013, the City of Vancouver decided to stop managing the museum. After that, the National Park Service took over directly. They now staff the museum themselves.
