Background on West Springfield Airport
Shortly after the end of the Second World War, a small group of residents formed a corporation to build an airport in West Springfield, Mass. The primary organizers of the endeavor included Whitfield Reid (a local attorney and first Chair of the corporation), Edward J. Kirby (a draftsman) and his brother E. Kenneth Kirby (a Navy veteran), Vernon A. Doty (a florist and market gardener and the largest shareholder), and Leonard W. Sweet, a young employee of the park department in the city. Chartered on June 3, 1946, and based on Riverdale Street, the corporation attracted a small group of investors, but appears never to have prospered. After many months of attempting to sell off their real estate, the corporation voted to liquidate in August 1954.
