The Washington State College Aero Club, occasionally referred to as the Glider Club, organized in fall of 1933, with members paying an entrance fee which, when pooled, allowed the club to purchase a new Alexander Eaglerock training glider. Very soon after they were flying regularly, launching their glider from ground level or low hills.
When Cloyd Artman of Oroville, a holder of several unofficial gliding world records, enrolled in 1934, bringing along his own glider, the club expanded, and would add more gliders in the coming years. They took to launching from higher sites, including Steptoe Butte and the lip of the Snake River Canyon. Artman’s sister Audrey, a record-holding glider pilot in her own right, would enter WSC and join the club in 1936.
On April 10, 1936, club member Elmer Carlson died of injuries suffered in a glider crash the day before. On April 11, 1937, Cloyd Artman and fellow member Frank See were killed in another crash. Though the Aero Club did meet a few times after in the fall of 1937, it appears to have ceased functioning as a student club at that point, until reconstituting a few years later as a group for those interested in becoming pilots.
The collection primarily consists of the minute book of the Washington State College Aero Club, covering the 1933 formation of the club to 1937. It also includes some correspondence, training and glider materials, and summary records of flights.
The materials are foldered alphabetically by subject.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply.
[Item description]
Washington State College Aero Club Minute Book, 1933-1937 (Archives 399)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
The book was found by his family among the possessions of Uriah “Bill” Franklin Corkrum, the secretary for the Aero Club, after his 2007 death. Not long thereafter his daughter-in-law, Dalia Corkrum, the Director of the Libraries at Whitman University in Walla Walla, WA, donated the materials to the special collections there. On August 20, 2021, Dana Bronson, archivist at Whitman, transferred the materials to WSU MASC where it was retained as UA2021-05.
University Archivist Mark O’English processed this collection in August, 2021. Individual loose materials within the minutes book were removed and separately foldered at that time.
Club and university materials relating to the 1937 gliding deaths of club members
Cloyd Artman and Frank See can be found in box 4, folder 5 of the School of
Mechanical Engineering Records 1913-1940
Copies of external materials relating to the Artman siblings can be found in the
Linda Chism Collection on Cloyd and Audrey Artman
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.