History
It began in 1926 when Harold Frederick Pitcairn constructed a hangar and a grass airstrip in Horsham, Pennsylvania. The name "Willow Grove" came from the nearest town. At the time, Horsham was a rural township with little significance. From 1926 to 1942 Pitcairn used the airfield for design, construction and testing of a number of aircraft, including the Mailwing which was used by the United States Postal Service.
After the start of World War II, the United States purchased the grounds, and launched a classified anti-submarine warfare program at the base. Following World War II and into the Cold War, it became an operational and training bases for aviation activities of the Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, Army Reserve and Army National Guard. As part of its joint recruitment efforts, the base was an annual host to one of the largest air shows on the East Coast until 2006.
Read more about this topic: Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Willow Grove
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It’s nice to be a part of history but people should get it right. I may not be perfect, but I’m bloody close.”
—John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)