History of Fairchild Aircraft building Hagerstown

Fairchild Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company was a company once known for making state of the art aircraft and was founded in 1925 officially the owner Sherman M. Fairchild founded another company in 1920 selling Ariel Survey equipment that helped advance the mapping for aircraft navigation, The first location was in Farmingdale, New York where Fairchild met Ammon Kreider and Lewis Reisner of the upstart Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company (KRA) of Hagerstown which operated out of a Wooden Shoe Repair Shed here Kreider and Reisner fixed sport planes and operated a flying service. Fairchild was very excited to work with the company. Beginning in 1928, Kreider worked with Fairchild to test the Caminez engine and improve on the design of the Challenger Sport Plane, The C-2 Challenger was a three-place biplane powered by a Curtiss OX-5 engine. It developed a national reputation as a sturdy, well-built, low-maintenance sport plane. Ammon Kreider's salesmanship and racing exploits marketed this model, along with the more powerful C-4. While building three planes a week, KRA was poised to modernize. The partners had blueprints for a new 32,000 sf factory capable of producing 500 planes a year, but needed the capital to expand. Since Fairchild and Kreider had already developed a successful working relationship, on 31 March 1929 the Fairchild Aviation Corporation officially acquired Kreider-Reisner Aircraft Company for $250,000. Sherman Fairchild was to be chairman of this new subsidiary, with Ammon Kreider president and Lewis Reisner vice-president. At a dinner announcing the merger at the Detroit Air Show, Sherman Fairchild exclaimed, "The most important thing is not the plant, but the fact that we are connecting with the Kreider-Reisner organization, one of the most efficient airplane manufacturing organizations in the United States." Only four days later Kreider would die in a midair collision at Detroit MI, Despite the setback the land behind was closed and sold to new company on 18 April 1929 and was to be named Factory No.1 and would be located on the land once the flying field for Kreider and Reisner. The Factory was completed in just 4 months and began operation in August 1929 with 300 employees working two shifts and producing 10 planes a week, many planes would be created in this Factory in the early years including the F-22s and F-24s which helped the company push through the great depression. In 1934 the company dropped the name Kreider and Reisner from the name of the company and renamed to the Fairchild Aviation Corporation. Many additions would be made to the building in the coming years and the US Military in the late 1930’s would begin looking towards the company for training aircraft as tensions rose in Europe. This would bring about the M-62 after testing of the aircraft past the Army’s Standards they ordered 270 PT-19 Planes another plane Fairchild had worked on. In 1940 the Western Maryland Railroad created a spur track at No.1 the same year the company expanded nearby to the Hagerstown Airport due to Capacity being reached at No.1 and around this same time the company had 8,000 employees a major step from the few hundred just a few years back. As more and more aircraft were built for WWII the company again expanded in 1944 this time with famed architect Albert Khan of Detroit to created another Factory for the company named No.2 at this time the company was producing the C-82, C-119 Aircraft. Bad news would come in 1955 as the Army canceled contracts for the C-119. Fairchild would still expand again in Hagerstown in 1957. But in 1961 the company would begin to lose out on some major contacts to the F-27. Employment of the company fell to 1,300 at Hagerstown and in 1963 production at No.1 would cease but would continue until 1983 at No.2. Various companies have leased the space but the final spaces would be abandoned by 2007 as the buildings fell into disrepair and being cited by the city of Hagerstown