Everything about William E Boeing totally explained
William Edward Boeing (
October 1,
1881 –
September 27,
1956) was an
aviation pioneer who founded The
Boeing Company.
Boeing was born in
Detroit,
Michigan to a wealthy
German mining engineer named Wilhelm Böing who had made a fortune developing large low-grade
taconite iron ore deposits and who had a sideline as a
timber merchant. Anglicizing his name to "William" after returning from being educated in
Switzerland in 1900 to attend
Yale University, William Boeing left Yale in 1903 to go into the lumber side of the business. He bought extensive timberlands around
Grays Harbor on the Pacific side of the
Olympic Peninsula. He also bought into lumber operations.
While president of
Greenwood Logging Company, Boeing, who had experimented with boat design, travelled to
Seattle, where, during the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, he saw a manned flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with
aircraft.
In 1916, Boeing went into business with
George Conrad Westervelt as B & W and founded The Pacific Aero Products Co. When America entered the
First World War in April 1917, Boeing changed the name of
Pacific Aero Products Co. to
Boeing Airplane Company and obtained orders from the
United States Navy for 50 planes. At the end of the war, Boeing began to concentrate on commercial aircraft, secured contracts to supply
airmail service and built a successful airmail operation.
In 1921 William Boeing married Bertha Marie, the daughter of
Howard Cranston Potter MD and Alice Kershaw Potter (a descendant of
Henry Leavenworth). Bertha Potter Paschall had previously been married to Nathaniel Paschall, a real estate broker and by that marriage had two sons, Nathaniel Paschall Jr. and Cranston Paschall. These two sons became Boeing's stepsons and the couple had a son of their own, William E. Boeing Jr. The stepsons went into aviation manufacturing as a career. Nat Paschall was a sales manager for Douglas Aircraft and then McDonnell Douglas. William E. Boeing Jr. became a noted private pilot and industrial real estate developer.
In 1934, the
United States government accused William Boeing of
monopolistic practices. The
Air Mail Act ordered him to break up his company into three separate entities:
United Aircraft Corporation, Boeing Airplane Company, and
United Air Lines.
Boeing retired from the aircraft industry in 1934. He then spent the remainder of his years in property development and thoroughbred
horse breeding. His thoroughbred farm northeast of Seattle was called Aldarra. Aldarra was later developed by William E. Boeing Jr. as a luxury residential development in 2000.
Boeing Airplane, though a major manufacturer in a fragmented industry, didn't really take off until the beginning of World War II.
According to his death certificate, William Boeing died on Friday September 27, 1956 at the age of 74, just days before his 75th birthday. He was pronounced
DOA at the Seattle Yacht Club, having had a
heart attack aboard his
yacht.
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