Carla Occaso
The flood of 1927 claimed many lives and bridges and cost millions of dollars in damages. However, some changes came that could be seen as modernizing the area — even attracting a world-famous aviator.
“Immediately following the flood of Nov. 3–4, 1927, Montpelier was cut off from the rest of the country by road and rail,” writes Perry Merrill in his book, “Montpelier: The Capital City’s History 1780–1976.” Then-U.S. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover flew to Montpelier, but he had to land on a farm on Towne Hill to inspect the losses because there was no other way in. Other services had to be rearranged as well.
Montpelier’s postmaster made a deal with Berlin landowner Almon St. John to use his fields (which were being used for ski landings) as a place for airplanes to land and take off because mail had to be flown in from Boston. In 1928, the St. John farm was bought by a group of citizens from Barre and Montpelier, where they installed a 4,800-square-foot hangar with a grass runway.
In 1933, the Boston and Maine Airways began service there with a plane that carried seven passengers. Some famous people also flew into the airport over the years, including Vice President Richard Nixon in 1956 and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson in 1963, followed by Vice-President Spiro Agnew in 1969. But perhaps the most celebrated person to land in Berlin was Amelia Earhart.
Two years before she disappeared over the Pacific, Earhart flew into the Berlin air field and spoke to the Vermont Legislature, according to the Newsletter of the Vermont State Archives (Spring issue, 2017, Vol. 13, Issue 1). She arrived on March 7, 1935, after flying across the Atlantic Ocean. Earhart is known to have given a speech in the Statehouse as part of her tour promoting U.S. aviation (Archives).
She also spoke to a class of Norwich University cadets. She may have spoken these words from her famous speech “A Woman’s Place in Science,” which is stored in the Library of Congress: “This modern world of science and invention is of particular interest to women, for it is the lives of women who have been more affected by its new horizon than those of any other group.”
