This Fort Worth airline was formed in 1927 to haul mail. Soon it carried people, too.

Texas Air Transport, Fort Worth’s first successful airline, became part of a company that is a leader in today’s aviation world – American Airlines. It wasn’t carrying people that initially made the airline profitable, it was air mail.

In August 1927 Fort Worth attorney Seth W. Barwise submitted the low bid for two federal air mail contracts on behalf of a group of Fort Worth businessmen planning to sell stock to finance airline operations. Barwise, an aviation enthusiast, was awarded Contract Air Mail routes #21 and #22, the first contracts connecting cities in Texas.

The government, however, didn’t like the notion of selling stock on the promise of a government contract, so they told Barwise to revamp his proposal for a smaller “closed corporation” that had investors but didn’t sell stock. He did, agreeing to hold the contracts until an airline could be formed that followed the government’s requirements.

Texas Air Transport was chartered on Oct. 13, 1927, by Fletcher G. Lippitt and brothers Temple and R. C. Bowen – all businessmen involved in the bus or motor coach industry. Almost immediately, the government approved the two air mail contracts, and Texas Air Transport was in business. Now all they needed were airplanes, pilots, and a place to land for what were called the “South Texas” routes.

Test runs were made in late December of 1927 and early in 1928 before the first regularly scheduled flights took off on Feb. 6, 1928. Two black and gold Pitcairn Mailwing bi-planes, piloted by Charles Pedley and L. S. Andrews, took off from Dallas for the inaugural flight, heading to Fort Worth and Waco before splitting into Austin-San Antonio and Houston-Galveston legs. They carried 162 pounds of mail between them.

Regular service called for only one plane to fly from Dallas to Fort Worth and Waco where the second plane was put into use to handle the split legs. Connections with National Air Transport flights from Chicago into Dallas allowed air mail to get to and from Texas cities served by Texas Air Transport overnight.

But people wanted to fly, and it didn’t take long for a passenger, J. A. Howlett, an oil company representative from Dallas, to catch the March 2 flight headed for Houston. Unfortunately, the plane caught fire, and both pilot and passenger had to finish their journey to Houston via automobile. There is no record about whether Howlett decided to take the train back to Dallas.

Regular passenger service, at first with two passengers in the Pitcairn bi-planes, was followed by two “cabin style” planes that could hold up to five passengers. Flights from Dallas and Fort Worth to Houston began on April 24, 1928.

It didn’t take long for someone to see that this was a great thing with lots of potential. A. P. Barrett purchased Texas Air Transport on Oct. 31, 1928, with plans to expand passenger service. The rest is history. Texas Air Transport was folded into Southern Air Transport later that year and into the Aviation Corporation in 1929, although it continued to use the Texas Air Transport name. That company became American Airways in January 1930 and was renamed American Airlines in April of 1934.

Carol Roark is an archivist, historian, and author with a special interest in architectural and photographic history who has written several books on Fort Worth history.