Porterfield Aircraft - 1st Factory Location

[Brett Lovett]

1328 Locust Street, Kansas City, Missouri
This photo was taken in 1940 for tax assessment purposes.
Advertising indicates that Porterfield was located here in 1934 & 1935.
The building appears to have remained until sometime in the 1960s.  

[Andy Gelston]

This is wonderful, Brett! It really gives us a better sense of where our skinny birds came from, seeing these pictures of the factory locations. Ed started out with minimal funding, so he couldn't afford a lot of square footage when building the early Flyabouts.

I'm assuming the man holding the sign, "4--1-23--1" was a location reference for the tax department.

Attached is a shot of the same view today. Yes, it's a parking lot...

Thank you, Brett!

[Brett Lovett]

Andy, 

My pleasure.  Porterfield was my starting point for my interest in Kansas City area aviation history, sparked by getting to fly a Porterfield LP-65 when I was in college.

Yes, the sign is a location reference:  District 4, Block 123, Lot 1.   These photos somehow managed to avoid being thrown out, and have been digitized by the Kansas City Public Library.  They are often are the only known photos of houses and buildings in the city that have disappeared since 1940.  I'll be sharing the next location soon.

Google is often inaccurate on street address locations unless a current building uses that address.  The former building location is actually a half block north of the image you attached (on the southwest corner of Locust and E 13th Terrace), but it's still a parking lot. This link should take you to the matching view: https://maps.app.goo.gl/8L3tpSut4WWVn5JF6

[Andy Gelston]

I think they call it...progress?