Hangar Project Represents Big City Commitment - By Tom Foster
Spending $1.4 million dollars for hangar space was a big commitment for the city. By demonstrating an immediate and compelling need Redwood Falls was able to leverage 90% funding from the FAA and 5% from the Minnesota Department of Transportation. (Photo Courtesy Silas Parmar Bolton & Menk)
Internet shopping is the way to go in the 21st Century. Point, click and buy means you never have to leave home to spend your money. The ancestor of “online” stores may have started in 1884 when the railroad station agent in North Redwood Falls found he was stuck with a shipment of watches the local jeweler claimed to have never ordered.
Seeing an opportunity, the agent used the U.S. Mail to offer them for sale then shipped them the same way. The “North” city and Redwood Falls merged in 1996, Richard Warren Sears was the 22-year-old agent’s name and he later partnered with a watch repairman named Roebuck to form a mail order company. The Sears and Roebuck catalog did the same thing for shoppers that the internet does today, buy stuff in the living room. The difference was you found what you wanted in the book, sent in a form with a check then goods were sent to your home.
Jack E. Robinson came to Redwood Falls in 1931. Sorry, it wasn’t the baseball player. This guy was a flight instructor. He rented some land and started an airport. After World War II, the city purchased the facility and the Redwood Falls Municipal Airport opened in 1948. Eventually, the airport evolved into a perfect general aviation facility, including a 4,000-foot-long primary runway with pavement, lights and ... Click here to read the complete article!