Al Gilhousen holds the honor of allegedly being the first signer of the Davis-Monthan Airfield Register. It's difficult to figure this out, as he appears to have signed a scrap of paper that was inserted into the original Register at some point in time, probably near February 6, 1925. He carried at least one passenger identified as Staff Sgt. David Gustine. They appear to have arrived from Lordsburg, NM.

Al Gilhousen's "Signature" in the Register

Regardless, he signed the Register a second time on Saturday January 8, 1927. On this date his signature lies neatly among the ranks of other signers on page 16. He carried a single passenger, L.D. Hughes. Based at Glendale, CA they were southeastbound from Casa Grande, AZ. They did not cite a destination.

I don't know much about pilot Gilhousen. A genealogy Web site created by the Gilhousen Family Association USA, Inc. documents his birth on February 4, 1898 at Los Angeles, California. He died May 6, 1973 at Medford, Oregon. He appears to have had four wives and six children. He was from a large family of six brothers and three sisters.

He flew early air mail contracts, along with fellow Register signers George Allen and Vance Breese. From the genealogy site referenced above, he "Served in the US Navy during WW I. Became an air mail pilot, served in the Royal Air Force, was a test pilot for Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Ferried military aircraft to battle zones during WW II. Later became the 5th ranking pilot for United Airlines flying California/Oregon routes. Lived in Ashland and Medford, OR mostly, and retired to a pear ranch near Medford, OR."

Site visitor and frequent contributor Mike Gerow offers the following anecdote that happened about nine months after Gilhousen signed the Register for the first time. Mike says, "Here's an anecdote about Al Gilhousen ... that appears on pp. 19-20 of my uncle Gene Gerow's* 1977 memoir, 'The Umpteenth Voyage, An Autobiographical Account of a San Joaquin Valley Farmboy's Struggle to Become an Airline Pilot.' .... Kind of a long preamble, but it sets up the rest of the story. The following occurred circa Nov. 1925 in Taft, as Gene, about  age 17 at the time, was home on break from his first semester away at Occidental College in Los Angeles. Russ, my dad, was 10 years Gene's senior and Cec (Cecil), the next oldest brother, owned the Jenny. Gene writes:

"...I found college quite an exciting challenge but well along in my first semester at Oxy, Mother wrote that Russ was ready to fly a single-seater he had bought from a local pilot and Cec had taken delivery on a Curtiss JN4D Jenny and I began to get 'antsy' about flying again. When Thanksgiving vacation arrived, I hurried back to Taft and, in addition to participating in a delicious home-cooked dinner that Mom set out on a couple of tables shoved together for the family group, I got some dual time in the Jenny.

"My brothers and I drove out to the improvised cow-pasture airport where the two airplanes were tied down. It seemed like old times again when I sat in the Jenny Cec had bought, on the same makeshift landing field where Dave Matthews and I had first set down in search of a practice landing area 'eons ago' and in the same kind of 'crate' as Dave was wont to call an airplane.

"Cec 'propped' the engine and in moments we were in the air. It was really good to fly once more and the Thanksgiving dinner tasted just that much better for my having gotten off the ground again. After dinner we went out to the flying field again (this pattern was to become a routine which would eventually drive Taft wives to the brink of insanity).

"Al Gilhousen, the pilot who delivered the Jenny up from Los Angeles, was there.  He watched Cec 's flying  and appeared to be satisfied. Then he turned his attention  to the T-M Scout  which Russ had recently bought. The rotary engine was very balky: Russ had tried to start it on and off all day, but with no success. Al said what it needed was a 'good cussin' out.' He stepped up to the stubborn little WWI surplus airplane and like a bull-voiced Admiral addressing a deckload of 'swabbies,' he roared out the loudest  and most complete list of personal invectives I had ever heard. Then he hollered, 'Contact!' Russ was sitting dejectedly in the cockpit and snapped the ignition switch on. Al gave the wooden propeller a tremendous yank and the LeRhone engine 'sprang into life' as they used to say.

"Then Al jumped into a waiting airplane and returned to L.A. I remained fascinated by my brief encounter and only contact with this legendary flyer."

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*Note: Eugene Gerow (1907-2000) retired in 1972 as a senior TWA captain with 32 years service and 27,000 hours flying time. If he ever flew into Davis-Monthan during his long and varied career, he failed to sign the Register. However, early in his professional career, he did fly co-pilot with Register signers Walter L. "Si" Seiler (Wilmington-Catalina Airline, Ltd) and Eddie Bellande (TWA). Gene was a younger brother of Russell T. Gerow, whose photograph and document collection may be accessed here. Another anecdote from this book can be found at pilot Bellande's Web page.

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UPLOADED: 06/18/08 REVISED: