DORR FIELD, ARCADIA, Fla.

We recently learned that Dorr Field, Arcadia, Fla., was named after Nutley WWI pilot Stephen H. Dorr Jr.

According to Florida Aviation and Southwest Florida - 1910 to 1996:

Near Arcadia, Carlstrom Field and Dorr Field were principal aviation training stations for the Army. At Dorr Field fourteen hangars were constructed and training was done in Curtiss JN-4D (Jenny) airplanes as well as some rotary engine craft produced by the Glenn Martin company. Army airfields were named after military aviation heroes of the day, and Carlstrom Field was named after First Lieutenant Victor Carlstrom who had made many altitude and distance records and died in a training flight.

Dorr Field ... was reopened in 1942 by John Riddle and operated as a civilian contract school for training Army aviators. At it's peak it had 700 cadets in training using Steerman training planes. Riddle also operated schools at Clewiston. In 1944 the Embry-Riddle interests were sold to John McKay. After the war, the field was converted to a minimum security prison.

Stephen Higginson Dorr Jr., 24, was killed in an airplane collision in Toronto on Aug. 18, 1917. The eldest son of Stephen H. Dorr of Satterthwaite Avenue, he had lived in Nutley all his life.

Dorr joined the Officers’ Reserve Corps at Fort Myer, Fla., ago and was one of ten men selected to go to Toronto for training in aviation with the Royal Flying Corps there.

According to the Toronto Globe, Aug. 18:

S. H. Dorr, an American cadet training with the Royal Flying Corps., was killed yesterday in an accident at Armour’s Heights.

It was Dorr’s first solo flight, and also the first solo flight of another cadet, an American, G. Squires.

In some manner the planes collided in the air, Dorr’s falling to the ground, and bursting into flames as soon as it struck the earth.

Bystanders extricated him from the machine, but not until he had been severely burned. He died a few minutes later.

The other aviator made his landing without mishap, but naturally his nerves were rather shaken.

Our thanks for the airport news heads-up to Robert F. Dorr (no relation), author of Air Combat: An Oral History of Fighter Pilots.

Copyright © 2006 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved.
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