Mid-Continent Airlines
Encyclopedia
The company was founded in 1928 in Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City, Iowa
Sioux City is a city in Plymouth and Woodbury counties in the western part of the U.S. state of Iowa. The population was 82,684 in the 2010 census, a decline from 85,013 in the 2000 census, which makes it currently the fourth largest city in the state....
as Hanford's Tri-State Airlines by Arthur Hanford, Jr., who offered charter service and scheduled flights from Sioux City to Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
and Bismarck, North Dakota
Bismarck, North Dakota
Bismarck is the capital of the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Burleigh County. It is the second most populous city in North Dakota after Fargo. The city's population was 61,272 at the 2010 census, while its metropolitan population was 108,779...
.
In 1934 it was awarded mail contract for runs from Minneapolis to Kansas City, Kansas
Kansas City, Kansas
Kansas City is the third-largest city in the state of Kansas and is the county seat of Wyandotte County. It is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the third largest city in the Kansas City Metropolitan Area. The city is part of a consolidated city-county government known as the "Unified...
; from Sioux Falls to Bismarck; and from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
to Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
via Minneapolis. The fleet consisted only of four four-passenger Lockheed Vega
Lockheed Vega
|-See also:-References:NotesCitationsBibliography* Allen, Richard Sanders. Revolution in the Sky: Those Fabulous Lockheeds, The Pilots Who Flew Them. Brattleboro, Vermont: The Stephen Greene Press, 1964....
s and three Ford Tri-Motors.
Hanford died in 1935 and his father took over the airline and it was acquired in 1936 by Thomas Fortune Ryan III, the grandchild of financier Thomas Fortune Ryan
Thomas Fortune Ryan
Thomas Fortune Ryan was a U.S. tobacco and transport magnate. Part of his fortune paid for the construction of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Richmond, Virginia.-Early days:...
. Ryan moved the headquarters to Kansas City and renamed the airline Mid-Continent in 1938 after expanding service into the oil boom cities in the Mid-continent Oil Field
Mid-continent Oil Field
The Mid-continent oil field is a broad area containing hundreds of oil fields in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. The area, which consists of various geological strata and diverse trap types, was discovered and exploited during the first half of the 20th century...
out of a hub in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
. Ten-passenger Lockheed Electra
Lockheed Model 10 Electra
The Lockheed Model 10 Electra was a twin-engine, all-metal monoplane airliner developed by the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation in the 1930s to compete with the Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2...
s were added to the fleet.
Both Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines
Northwest Airlines, Inc. was a major United States airline founded in 1926 and absorbed into Delta Air Lines by a merger approved on October 29, 2008, making Delta the largest airline in the world...
and American Airlines
American Airlines
American Airlines, Inc. is the world's fourth-largest airline in passenger miles transported and operating revenues. American Airlines is a subsidiary of the AMR Corporation and is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas adjacent to its largest hub at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport...
proposed mergers with the airline in the 1940s but they were never approved.
After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Mid-Continent expanded to Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport, Louisiana
Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana. It is the principal city of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana and is the 109th-largest city in the United States....
, New Orleans, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
and Houston, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
Mid-Continent got a lucrative contract to deliver airmail
Airmail
Airmail is mail that is transported by aircraft. It typically arrives more quickly than surface mail, and usually costs more to send...
in 1950 on the North Central route #106.
Mid-Continent was the only major airline offering passenger and mail service to Fairfax Airport
Fairfax Airport
Fairfax Airport was an airport in Kansas City, Kansas from 1921 until it closed in 1985. It is most famously associated with the construction of most of the B-25 Mitchell bombers....
across the Missouri River
Missouri River
The Missouri River flows through the central United States, and is a tributary of the Mississippi River. It is the longest river in North America and drains the third largest area, though only the thirteenth largest by discharge. The Missouri's watershed encompasses most of the American Great...
from Kansas City Municipal Airport. The airport was inundated in the Great Flood of 1951
Great Flood of 1951
In mid-July 1951, heavy rains led to a great rise of water in the Kansas River and other surrounding areas. Flooding resulted in the Kansas, Neosho, Marais Des Cygnes, and Verdigris river basins. The damage in June and July 1951 exceeded $935 million dollars in an area covering eastern Kansas and...
.
Kansas City, Missouri moved to build a new airport away from the river for both Mid-Continent and TWA
Twa
The Twa are any of several hunting peoples of Africa who live interdependently with agricultural Bantu populations, and generally hold a socially subordinate position: They provide the farming population with game in exchange for agricultural products....
which had its main overhaul base in a former B-25 bomber factory at Fairfax. The new airport was to be called Mid-Continent Airport which would eventually become Kansas City International Airport
Kansas City International Airport
Kansas City International Airport , originally named Mid-Continent International Airport, is a public airport located 15 miles northwest of the central business district of Kansas City, in Platte County, Missouri, United States. In 2008, 10,469,892 passengers used the airport...
. However before the airport could open, Mid-Continent Airlines was taken over by Braniff in 1952.
By the time they merged in 1953, Mid-Continent operated a fleet of DC-3s and five Convair-liners. The DC-3s continued flying for only a few more years, while the Convairs continued flying for Braniff Airways until the mid to late 1960s, eventually being phased out as the airline acquired Lockheed L-188 Electras followed by Boeing 707s, 720s and BAC-111s. Then the 727-100 and then 200 series for an all-jet fleet. During their lifetime Braniff Airways also operated the Stinson Detroiter, the Ford tri-motor, Lockheed vega and Model 10 Electra, C-46, Convair 240, 340 and 440 series. The DC-2, DC-3/C-47, and DC-4/C-54. The DC-6 and the DC-7C. There were also two ex-TWA Lockheed 749 Constellations; and the DC-8 aircraft acquired during the merger with Panagra. There were also the five Boeing 707-138s acquired from Qantas in the mid 1960s. On January 15, 1971 Braniff began flying its first 747-127 on the route between DAL (Dallas Love Field) and Honolulu HNL using a single 747-127, followed in the later 70s by 747-227s and four leased 747s from Lufthansa and American Airlines two aircraft each. Rounding out the fleet for long range non-stop DFW to Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong were two 747SPs. Braniff was also the only U.S. carrier to fly Concorde (Air France and British Airways interchanges with Braniff crews flying the domestic legs to DFW).