Col. Paul Henderson, vice-president of Transcontinental Air Transport
St. Paulites       R. C. Lilly, president of the First National Bank
                        J. M. Hannaford Jr., vice-president of Gordon & Ferguson
                        C. E. Johnson, vice-president of Empire National Bank
                        Col. Lewis H. Brittin

            It was Brittin along with St. Paul aviation entrepreneur Bill Kidder who enticed the Detroiters to ante up. It is believed that Ford Chief Engineer William Mayo was instrumental in gathering the Detroit moguls to hear Brittin’s and Kidder’s sales pitch.
Brittin and Mayo had become friends when Brittin was involved in refurbishing an old government power dam on the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities. The result was the St. Paul Ford plant, said to be the first Ford assembly plant built outside the Detroit area.

            Fair weather in October 1926 permitted the fledging airline to get off to a good start meeting the obligations of its airmail contract. In keeping with the times (The Roaring Twenties) the directors and management aggressively sought route extension and quality equipment. One of their first actions was the purchase of three Stinson Detroiter aircraft. These new, state of the art planes, featured accommodations for three passengers in an enclosed cabin.

            Within two years route expansion saw service in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley. Another move saw the airline become an international carrier with weekly flights from Minneapolis to Winnipeg. After three months, service to Winnipeg was suspended due to opposition of the Canadian government. Rather than total abandonment of the route, Northwest flights were terminated at Pembina, North Dakota, where connecting service was contracted with a Canadian airline for the short 67-mile segment from Pembina to Winnipeg.

            Year 1929 was an historic one, not only for Northwest Airways but the world generally. Before the market collapse in the late fall, Northwest had upgraded its fleet to include two of the new Ford Tri-motors. Unfortunately both were lost. One in June 1929 in a crash in St. Paul and the second in a hangar fire at Chicago a year later. Despite that bad luck, Brittin and Lilly decided it was time to bring Northwest Airways home. They approached Twin City business leaders. The result was a buyout of Detroit interests with Lilly becoming Northwest’s first home-grown president. A new Board of Directors, of course, including St. Paul’s Frank B. Kellogg, former US Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. Kellogg’s impressive wrought-iron-fence-enclosed home remains today in St. Paul’s original Crocus Hill district. Interestingly, Brittin’s old friend, Ford Chief Engineer William Mayo, remained on Northwest’s new Board of Directors until Brittin resigned from the company late in 1933.

            Despite the burdens caused by the “Great Depression”, the airline pushed its expansion north to Duluth, MN and then ever westward to Billings, MT and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It then pioneered a route through those mountains to Spokane. Some competitors called this expansion idiotic and suicidal. Shortly thereafter Northwest Airways was awarded the route extension from Spokane to Seattle.