Aviation pioneer William Edward "Bill" Boeing (1881-1956) was born in Detroit to German immigrants. He came to Seattle in 1908, where, during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, he saw a manned flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with aircraft. With a partner, Mr. Boeing created two B&W prototype float planes in 1916, both of which were rejected by the U. S. Navy. The U.S. entered WWI in 1917 and Mr. Boeing hired Wong Tsu (1893-1965) a Chinese aeronautical engineer and recent graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to design the Model C plane. The design became Boeing’s first financially successful aircraft when the Navy commissioned 50 Model C planes. In 1919, having delivered the last Model C to the Navy, Mr. Boeing has one built for himself, which he and Eddie Hubbard used make North America’s first international mail delivery, flying 60 letters to Seattle from Vancouver, B.C.

In this image a Boeing Model C sits tied to a dock that appears to be located on Westlake Avenue North, on the northwest side of Lake Union. The camera is looking northeast, towards the Fremont and Wallingford neighborhoods. Two of the business visible in the background are the Zimmerman-Degan Shoe Company and the Brooklyn Laundry Company, which were both located at the time of this image at about Ewing Street (now North 34th Street) and Wallingford Avenue (now Wallingford Avenue North).

Webster & Stevens number: 72672

Caption information source: "From cloth to carbon fiber, a timeline of Boeing’s 100-year flight," The Seattle Times, July 9, 2016.