The Dakota Territory Air Museum is appropriately located on the northeast corner of the Minot International Airport. The museum was started in 1986, which was Minot & Ward County’s Centennial according to one of the museum’s founder and longtime president Don Larson, and the Chairman of the Centennial Celebration was Ed Schmidt. “He asked me if I would serve as Chairman of the Aviation Days for the Centennial” recalls Larson, “he wanted us to put on an air show as part of the Centennial Celebration.”
Larson agreed to take care of that part of the Centennial Celebration, and he immediately formed a committee of other folks interested in aviation to work on the air show, and from that stemmed the idea “of maybe starting a museum” shares Larson “so I guess that’s kind of where it started from. We put together our corporate paperwork I the later part of 1986.” People who were interested in the air museum would include Alfred and Warren Pietsch and of course Don Larson. “We were the incorporators of the corporation.”
It would take until 1989 for the first building to be built on the site, followed by the current front entry building in 1991. The next addition would not come until 2000 “and that addition came about because of Oswin Elker” says Larson “who grew up in Surrey. Oswin flew with the Flying Tigers over in China. After Oswin got out of the service he ended with a heating and sheet metal business in Rochester, Minnesota.” According to Larson Oswin would make a yearly visit to the Minot area to visit family he had in the area, including a niece that lives in Surrey. It was the niece’s husband who was pretty interested in aviation. They would visit the Dakota Territory Air Museum “and show him (Oswin) what the museum was trying to get going, and he was really interested in what we were doing.” Oswin Elker ended up bringing some of his memorabilia from his Flying Tiger days to be displayed at the museum. “What he brought looked like brand new” said Larson.
The museum story would get a lot more interesting in 1994 when Don Larson received a call from Oswin from his home in Rochester. He had just received a diagnosis of cancer and was only given 6 months to live. Even though he would live another year and half, Oswin Elker would tell Larson that “he would like to give them a little money so they could get that thing (the museum) going up there (in Minot). The museum would end up getting $325,000.00 from his estate when he passed away, which was huge. His donation couldn’t have been more timely. We were sitting at board meetings deciding who would have to kick in a few extra bucks to pay the utilities. We were really strapped (for operating money), it was touch and go” relates Larson.
The money was used to build what is referred to as the Elker Wing, named after Oswin Elker, which would be added on to in later years. The original building was 100 feet by 100 feet, giving the museum a much needed 10,000 square foot building. There would be another fund drive that would give the museum the funding it need to add on another 100 foot by 100 foot addition.
Then came the Texas Flying Legends and the arrival of the warbirds. “There were 2 guys from Houston, Texas. One guy in particular wanted to get into warbirds so he bought a P-51 Mustang from a Dr. Reichert in Bismarck, Dakota Kid II. He would bring that Mustang to our museum for about a month during the summer months. For many years he would take his Mustang from here down to Palms Springs.” It was a couple of partners Dr. Ed Bosarge and Bruce Eames that came to Minot with the intent of purchasing Dakota Kid II and having board member Warren Pietsch fly the plane in a couple of air show a year. The final destination for Dakota Kid II was always planned to be The Dakota Territory Air Museum.
It was a desire by a couple of the partners in The Texas Flying Legends to display their airplanes in Minot during the hot summer days in Texas that eventually brought on the last building, The Flying Legends Hangar, now home to the fleet of warbirds that are mostly owned by Bruce Eames. “The Flying Legends Hangar was funded by half a million dollars from the City of Minot, along with 1.25 million dollars the Texas Flying Legends” says Larson. The building was dedicated on July 4th, 2013.
I shared with Don that my wife and I had been to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina just a few months back and we were able to tour the site of the Wright brother first flight. A replica of the Wright brothers Flyer plane, built by volunteers, is owned by and displayed in the Dakota Territory Air Museum. “How the Wright brothers Flyer came about” says Larson “was quite a story in itself. It was built on the 100th Anniversary of the Wright brothers flight in 2003. It was a challenge because we worked with the Fargo Air Museum, and some Experimental Aircraft Chapters who had agreed to do some of the components for the Wright Flyer, and instead of making one, they made two and we assembled them in each of the museums.”
Operating capital for the Dakota Territory Air Museum is raised through their annual sweepstakes that gives the lucky winter a chance to win an airplane. A limited number of tickets are sold “and the sweepstakes continues to be extremely popular. A majority of our operating money comes through that sweepstakes” says Larson. “A majority of our planes have been donated to museum.”
So, has the museum been what Don Larson had dreamed it could be? “Oh, so much more” Larson says with a smile.
