Northport’s Woolsey Airport gets Michigan Historical Marker
From staff reports
The Clinton F. Woolsey Memorial Airport, located approximately 5 miles north of Northport on County Road 629, will receive a dedication of Michigan Historical Marker on Wednesday, July 14, at noon.
The historical marker will be unveiled at noon with comments by Woolsey relatives and local dignitaries. The fieldstone terminal will be open for tours and the U.S. Coast Guard will fly over at 12:15 p.m.
The airport is named after Clinton F. Woolsey, who died in an airplane accident in 1927 while on the Pan-American Good Will Flight to South America sponsored by the U.S. government. He was a native of Northport, and his father donated 80 acres of the family farm to Leelanau Township for an airport to honor his son.
The Michigan Historical Marker Program was established by the legislature and governor in 1955. Since then, more than 1,700 have been placed all across the state.
In the fall of 2018 Lynn Contos, the grand-niece of Clinton Woolsey, with authors and historians Christine Byron and Tom Wilson decided that the Woolsey Airport should have a Michigan historical marker telling the story of Clinton’s service on the Good Will Flight to South America, and the founding of the airport that bears his name. Information was gathered over the next year, documenting primary resources required for the historical marker application.
Research on Clinton Woolsey and the Pan-American Good Will Flight was done by Christine Byron and Tom Wilson, while research on the Woolsey family was done by Lynn Contos. Assistance was provided by the Northport Area Heritage Museum and the Leelanau Historical Society Museum. Information was gathered from local newspapers, the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institute. A notebook with 288 pages of research and photographs was compiled by Christine Byron and copies given to the Northport Area Heritage Association and the Leelanau County Historical Society. The 12-page application was written by Heather Edwards and submitted to the Michigan History Center for approval on December 18, 2019.
The process for approval usually takes several months and the team received word that the application was approved on March 12, 2020. The next step involved writing the marker text, which was done by the Michigan History Center interns and staff and approved on June 12, 2020. The order for the marker was then sent to the foundry for fabrication, which took several months. In the fall of 2020 the historical marker was received at the Woolsey Airport. But with COVID restrictions, the dedication was delayed until July 14, 2021.
Meanwhile, funding for the cost of the marker needed to be raised. A donation jar at the August 2019 Fly-In at the Woolsey Airport raised the first donations. Then appeals for donations were sent to Woolsey family members as well as summer residents.
The airport, dedicated on July 14, 1935, retains its original grass runways and distinctive fieldstone terminal building that once served as the creamery for the Woolsey family farm. Designed and built about 1890 by dairy farmer and self-taught craftsman Byron Woolsey, the creamery was incorporated into plans for the airport meant to honor Clinton.
The site of the airport is also significant as the home place of three generations of Woolsey men who volunteered their service and/or lives to the nation.
