The above photo, shows the newly completed slate roofed mansion that Jack renovated from a small farm house he purchased in November 15, 1938. The 1939 newspaper photo remains a mirror image of the estate as it appears today in 2006, as it sits on Foster Street. The property and original small farm house once was the home of a regional Indian Chief, and is said to date back to the 1880's. This proved a nice fit for Jack Frye, who was part Cherokee himself. As a matter of fact, the foundation walls of the cellar are noted as being the oldest building foundations in the area. Jack hired the famous Frank Lloyd Wright architect, Edward Buehler Delk to design the new mansion around the original structure. The project was finished in 1939, just five years after Jack Frye became president of Transcontinental and Western Air, (December 1934.) Edward Delk was the prominent architect who designed the nationally famous Kansas City, Country Club Plaza, in 1922. This open air shopping center, was the first such in the nation. Although Delk designed many noted buildings in Kansas City, to include the famous Starlight Theatre at Swope Park, he also designed many private homes as well. A plaque with his initials are cemented into the back private patio of the Jack Frye House. Mr. Delk was noted for his interest in Tudor designs and likely this is the reason for this particular influence in the Jack Frye project. The current owners say the home is thought to be French Country, perhaps a stone Chateau? As well, it is not difficult to see a slight "Storybook Home" style, popular in 1930's Hollywood, (Jack Frye's stomping grounds.) The project proved quite expensive as the property was isolated and considered way out in the country for the time. Many local residents were said to have called the renovation, "Frye's Folly." However, true to Jack Frye's legendary vision and insight, the "folly" tag was quite unfounded. The area became popular for Kansas City residents that desired close-in rural acreages with large ranch home estates. Jack was always interested in "country living," a lifestyle very popular in the 1930's and 1940's. This home was a perfect example of the atmosphere he sought. It enabled him a retreat from his stressful life as president and founder of Transcontinental and Western Air. Interestingly, Overland Park has recently been selected by CNN Money Magazine, as one of the "Top Ten Small Cities" to live in the United States, ranking 6th place, click here for the article. No doubt, Overland Park is as proud of this rating, as they are of their association with Jack Frye and TWA.
Another tale is quite a puzzle as to how it could have possibly started? It involves Rockne Knute, and the famous TWA crash of 1931. The details of the story are so far fetched and ridiculous, that I feel they must not be repeated here, at risk of perpetuating unfounded rumors. However, one does wonders how such a story ever became associated with the house in the first place? If anyone has any verifiable information involving this property and Knute Rockne, please contact me.
With the Growth of a New Industry
By J.D. Bowersock (Copyrighted)
(The Star's Aviation Editor)
Sunday May 7, 1939
A 14-year-old Texas youth named Jack Frye caught pneumonia when he saw his first airplane, and for many weeks the family doctor didn't believe he would pull through. That was in 1918, when he received a pair of ice skates from his father for Christmas. He trudged over the plains to a pond, but, just as he started to try the skates for the first time, three army "Jennies" landed near by.
There was no more thought of skating when Jack had such an opportunity as this, so he spent the entire day "hanging around the flying machines" and running errands for the pilots. As a result of the long exposure with wet feet, he contracted pneumonia. He didn't get to see the planes take off, because the next ten weeks he was in bed.
Two weeks ago, at the age of 35, this same Jack Frye, now president of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc., gained the controlling interest of the coast-to-coast air line, together with Paul E. Richter, executive vice-president, and last week Frye sat on the patio of his attractive new home in rural Johnson county and recalled his boyhood and the events that led him to his high position in aviation today.
The stocky and genial young air line president was "taking a day off," relaxing in the sunshine as he directed the landscaping on the 5-acre track surrounding his new home. Wearing a slouch hat, open-necked shirt, sun glasses, comfortable slacks and bedroom slippers, he was definitely and completely at ease. He had just finished an open air luncheon in the patio with Mrs. Frye and was ending the meal with his favorite snack, macaroons with a touch of peanut butter added.
There was a noticeable reluctance to tell of his climb to success. He hesitated to reveal some of the jobs he has held in order to "get along." But the jobs he held and the things he did to attain his present place in business and aviation help to reveal the character and spirit of this Kansas Citian.
Jack's mother died when he was 8 years old. Although he calls home a 15,000-acre ranch near Wheeler, Tex., he was born in Sulphur, Ok., where his mother was visiting. The big ranch is a family affair, so Jack, his brother Donald (now personnel manager of Consolidated Aircraft) and his sister, Opal, (now Mrs. Opal Lowe of Los Angeles) were reared by the grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Frye, and the father, W.H. Frye., both the father and grandparents still live on the ranch.
"Just as soon as we were old enough we took an active part in the work around the ranch," the air line executive recalled. "As was the custom, my grandparents gave each of us a heifer calf when we were born and a horse as soon as we were old enough to ride. We worked and helped drive cattle to Canadian, Tex., to be shipped to Kansas City. By the time I was 7 years old I owned four or five head of cattle. So we thought we were in business. I figured I was paying my own way by raising cattle."
A Restless Period When 6.
It was while he was a freshman at the Clarendon, Tex., high school that flying machines came into his life for the first time and so nearly resulted in his death from pneumonia.
"The planes were there two or three days, but I didn't get to see them take off," he said. "The doctor didn't think I would live and I was too sick to think of airplanes. In fact, I didn't think of airplanes for several years after that.
"I stayed at the ranch until I was 16 years old and began to get restless so I joined the Army Engineering Corps and went to El Paso. Later I was transferred to Camp Dodge, Iowa and then to Camp Lewis, Washington. But a year of that was enough and I got out and went back to the ranch."
Mr. And Mrs. Jack Frye At Ease In The Patio Of Their New Home (shown above)
"In Rural Johnson County Kansas, Where The Young Airline President Considers The Problems Of Landscaping The 5-Acre Tract Instead Of Changing The Schedule Of Flight 5."
They found what so many other youths found--beautiful scenery, the ocean, but no jobs. Finally, Don got a job with the telephone company, one of the other boys went to work in a bank, the third "went home to mother" and Jack just kept on looking for a job.
Dishwasher, Then Newsboy.
"I sold the car and spent that money," he related. "I was hungry and behind in my room rent. I got desperate. (He admitted he could have wired his father or grandparents for money but was too proud to do it.) I started walking down the street asking at every place for a job. I had walked eight blocks, and canvassed every store when I came upon a restaurant with a sign in the window: "Dishwasher wanted."
"I got the job and was told to report the following morning at 6 o'clock. I returned and smoothed things over with the landlady and went to work the next day for $12 a week and something to eat.
"Believe it or not, I washed dishes in that place for three weeks. Then I went to selling newspapers on the street in Los Angeles. I got to making $18 a week and was getting along."
At a drugstore near "his" corner Jack stopped in occasionally for a drink of water. He could not afford the other fountain drinks. One day the proprietor asked him if he knew anyone wanting a job as fountain attendant.
"I'll take it," said Jack, jumping at the chance. "Sure I've had experience." Next morning he discovered that mixing drinks was not as simple as he thought.
"To tell the truth I couldn't even mix a coke, but the proprietor was a good old soul and helped me get started. And think of it! The salary was $25 a week and my meals."
He kept plugging along working thirteen hours a day. There was no time or money for recreation, so he was banking about $18 a week. Then came that yearning for travel again, and another event which almost changed the course of his life.
First Flight cost $5
"I and the fellow who worked at the picture show next door to the drugstore, decided to sign up on a boat bound for Australia and see the world. So I quit the job and we signed up. Then the other fellow backed out and I didn't want to go alone. But I had quit my job. I succeeded in getting the soda jerking job back and the following week was when I started to think of flying."
"Yes," he relates, "I paid $5 in the same kind of plane that gave me pneumonia."
Later Fuller, who is now foreman of the Northrop division of the Douglas Aircraft corporation, talked his passenger, then 19 years old into taking instructions at $20 an hour. The "soda jerk's" savings were raided and after seven and one-half hours of dual instruction young Frye took to the air alone. On the same day he soloed, he took a passenger into the air--but the passenger never knew.
After renting the plane for solo flying several weeks, Jack was offered an opportunity to purchase half interest in it.
"I didn't have that much money. I had sold those cows at the ranch and I asked my grandparents for a loan and got an emphatic no.
I asked Don about borrowing the money, and, in consideration of my promise to teach him to fly, he sold his cows and lent me the money."
A Student With Cash Enrolls
Fuller and Frye continued to operate the scenic flight line and train students to fly. Into their embryo flying school walked a young man from Colorado one day. He was 28 years old and although short of stature, was long on ready money, thus when Paul Richter "enrolled," and paid $250 cash to learn to fly, Fuller and Frye almost fainted.
Richter had gone to California from Denver, where his father had operated an advertising agency. He worked as office boy, but advertising and sales were not his line.
"My ambition was to be an agriculturalist," he recalls. "With this in mind, I attended the Colorado agricultural college and when I finished I took over the management of a ranch my father owned in Morgan County."
In 1918 Richter joined the army, was commissioned a second lieutenant and failed in an attempt to transfer to the air corps. He was "on the dock" ready to go to Europe when the war ended and he returned to the ranch. As soon as he got a stake he leased the ranch and went to California to learn to fly.
"I canvassed every flying school from San Francisco to San Diego and then came upon the one operated by Fuller and Frye," Richter relates. "After I paid up I was turned over to Jack and he taught me to fly. I took Bon MacDougall, daredevil race driver and stunt man, on my first solo. The crazy guy got out of the cockpit and went out on the wing. I was worried, but just kept flying. When we landed he offered me a job stunt flying for the movies."
Three "Graduates" Buy the School
W.A. Hamilton, shop foreman for the Duesenberg company in Los Angeles, had joined the school and learned to fly under the tutelage of Frye. He had made enough money to buy a plane, and Frye, Richter and Hamilton decided to buy Fuller out and form the Aero Corporation of California.
Each of the three had something definite to contribute to the newly formed company. Although the assets consisted only of a few old planes and some "junk" equipment, Frye had the vision of the future of aviation, Richter had the stabilizing influence, and Hamilton now superintendent of maintenance for the airline here, was the mechanical genius who could almost turn a washing machine into an airplane engine.
The little company was successful. Lindbergh had flown the Atlantic and students rushed to the school in droves. Advertising by air was the thing and the fliers towed any sort of sign they could attach behind their planes. They formed a crop dusting company and spread insect powder over rural farmland.
The three men remained fliers throughout the years. They launched an agency for Eaglerock Airplanes.
The first plane cost $2,700. All the three partners could raise was $500, but the ship was ordered and sold before it arrived in Los Angeles. "We got along on that first deal, and sold 60 of the ships the first year at $500 dollars profit each," Frye said. With the addition of the Fokker line of planes at our agency, we got to the point where we could own several of our own. So we started Standard Airlines.
Three times a week the one-plane service operated between Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona, Frye and Richter handled the flying, and Hamilton maintained the mechanical efficiency of the plane on each Sunday. Success developed rapidly.
The Standard Flying School became a subsidiary of the Aero Corporation of California. More planes were purchased. The crop dusting company operated above the San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys and along the west coast of Mexico. Airline flights became daily and a connection was made with the railroad in El Paso.
"At top left are Paul E. Richter and Jack Frye, new vice-president, and president of Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc., as they appeared in 1925 with an army "Jenny" ready "to do anything to earn an honest dollar" in the air. At the right, they are shown as they appear today at the headquarters of the air line at the Municipal Air Terminal here in Kansas City. The two men now have controlling interest in the coast-to-coast air line, a part of whose fleet of thirty-six Douglas air liners is shown, "on the line" to the left."
"Whether it was stunting, advertising, instruction in flying, or even crop dusting, the Aero Corporation of California, headed by Frye and Richter, would do the job. At the right center, is one of the "corporation" doing a little crop dusting in the Imperial Valley. Aero Corporation created Standard Airlines, Inc., operating a 1-plane "fleet" between Los Angeles, Calif. and Phoenix, Ariz. This was the plane pictured at the bottom, center, and which contrasts with the one above it, President Frye's private plane (Northrop Gamma,) which can do 225 miles an hour."
"At the right below, is the entrance to the headquarters of Transcontinental and Western Air at the Municipal Air Terminal here, (Kansas City.)
The little company was attracting national attention and the three men began to receive offers. In 1929, their air operation was merged with Western Air Express, with Frye in charge of operations, and Richter the west coast superintendent. The line operated from Kansas City to Los Angeles, San Francisco to Los Angeles, Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, and from Los Angeles to Catalina Island, and Aqua Caliente.
In October, 1930, Western Air Express merged with Transcontinental Air Transport, which was operating a plane-train service from coast to coast through Kansas City, and the new company became Transcontinental & Western Air, Inc.
Today T.W.A. serves twenty-one cities between New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It operates a fleet of thirty-six twin-engined Douglas planes over its 5,226 route miles. There are 700 persons employed at the headquarters plant at the Municipal Air terminal and the total number employed by the line today is 1,350.
"What of tomorrow in aviation?" Frye was asked. "Many young men feel there is great opportunity today in aviation, and I refer to men now employed in that industry," he answered. "But there is more opportunity now than ever before. Despite all the hardships we have encountered in the airline business, there has been monumental increase in business in the last five years.
"A few years ago there was no definite government policy towards operation. No one seemed to know where we were headed. The industry had no standing. Everything was on a temporary basis. The industry was operating in the red, but we have enjoyed good growth despite all this and the fact that during hard times there had been virtually no technical progress.
Sees a Promising Future
"Many things for the advancement of aviation were put on the shelf because there was no money. But now, under the civil aeronautics authority, the future is bright. We no longer have to plan from day to day and devote our efforts to 'getting by.'
"We are on the verge of a tremendous business development because the adverse factors are changing for the better. The best indication is in borrowing money; we can do it today at half the rate it cost us a year ago. The government is spending more money to develop the airways. Research and military development have increased to improve airline business. Purchases abroad have helped the manufacturer to carry on with research.
Similarly, air travel has brought widely-separated cities close together. We are going forward."
Both Frye and Richter like outdoor sports. Through their early days on ranches they are good riders and each year participate in rodeos. Frye married Miss Regina LaCoste, a Paris girl he met in New York. They were married Christmas eve, 1932, at Excelsior Springs.
Mrs. Richter, the former Miss Daisy B. Cooke, met Paul in Colorado. They were married in Los Angeles, June 23, 1926, and she has taken a keen interest in aviation as she worked with her husband through the trying years of the "stunt era." They have two children, Paul E. Richter, Jr., 9 years old, and Ruth Alice Richter, 5.
All Rights Reserved
Transcontinental and Western Air
Historical Webpage
Sedona Legend Helen Frye