Porterfield Aircraft - 2nd Factory Location

[Brett Lovett]

2500 McGee Trafficway, Kansas City, Missouri
This photo was taken in 1940 for tax assessment purposes.
Advertising indicates that Porterfield was located here in 1935 & 1936.
It's not clear how much of the building that Porterfield occupied. 

The photo below of the same building was taken around 1928.  The entry seen is the 2500 McGee address.

Same location today: https://maps.app.goo.gl/tN3edvbWTZYXKMx56

[Andy Gelston]

Thank you, Brett!  It's curious how the skyline hasn't changed much. Taller buildings replaced taller buildings and 2500 was replaced by a convention center (?) of about the same height.

I get the feeling that maybe Porterfield manufacturing wasn't all in the same location. They may have had the steel fab & welding shop in one location, wood shop in another, sheetmetal in another, dope & fabric in another, and final assembly at one of the local airports.

[Brett Lovett]

Andy,

The original building was later occupied by Hallmark Cards.  In the 1960s it was replaced with the current building, which now houses the Hallmark Visitor Center, Hallmark Kaleidoscope, and part of the Hallmark Corporate Headquarters.  

The locations I'm sharing are the addresses that Porterfield advertised as their office locations over the time they were in operation, and they may certainly have had additional locations for portions of manufacturing.  In particular, I think that's likely for the first location at 1328 Locust Street because of its size.  Also, none of these locations were close enough to any of the area airports for movement of fully assembled airplanes from the factory to the airport to be reasonable, so final assembly would have had to have been done at an airport.  The paperwork for the first Porterfield, Model 35, S/N 101, X14400, indicates that it was available for inspection at the Kansas City Municipal Airport when it was completed.