Title
Student Major/Year in School
History, Third Year
Faculty Mentor Information
Dr. Lynn-Sherow, History, College of Arts and Sciences
Abstract
Just outside of the rural town of Rago, Kansas is a 40-acre farm that belonged to Clyde Cessna: aviator, inventor, and founder of Cessna Aircraft Co. Cessna had an impressive aviation career that placed him as the Henry Ford of aviation, spanning decades into the early 20th century. He was an innovator in the new field of aeronautics. Today his legacy is seen in the air with the name Cessna printed on the sides of countless airplanes. The untold part of the story is that without his 40-acre farm for support, Cessna would have been grounded. Clyde Cessna put his exceptional mind to work tinkering and running profitable farm operations throughout his life. Foundational to Cessna’s career, his 40-acre Rago farm was where he raised his family, built his early planes, and navigated his innovative and risky aviation career
This research project uses primary and secondary sources, as well as photographs from The Kansas Aviation Museum and the Chapman Center For Rural Studies, and organizes them into a digital exhibit. This exhibit is available online and argues the importance of Clyde Cessna’s farm to his career in aviation. Though out his career the farm supported Cessna as he risked life, limb, and wallet to get his airplanes off the ground. This farm in the small town of Rago is historically important to both aviation history and Kansas history as the foundation to one of the state’s greatest inventors and innovators. The project is publicly available at the URL cessnafamilyfarm.omeka.net. The website will be continuously updated as more materials are collected about the homestead and the Cessna family.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Levin, Ethan (2019). "Clyde Cessna's 40," Kansas State University Undergraduate Research Conference. https://newprairiepress.org/ksuugradresearch/2019/panels2/3
Clyde Cessna's 40
Just outside of the rural town of Rago, Kansas is a 40-acre farm that belonged to Clyde Cessna: aviator, inventor, and founder of Cessna Aircraft Co. Cessna had an impressive aviation career that placed him as the Henry Ford of aviation, spanning decades into the early 20th century. He was an innovator in the new field of aeronautics. Today his legacy is seen in the air with the name Cessna printed on the sides of countless airplanes. The untold part of the story is that without his 40-acre farm for support, Cessna would have been grounded. Clyde Cessna put his exceptional mind to work tinkering and running profitable farm operations throughout his life. Foundational to Cessna’s career, his 40-acre Rago farm was where he raised his family, built his early planes, and navigated his innovative and risky aviation career
This research project uses primary and secondary sources, as well as photographs from The Kansas Aviation Museum and the Chapman Center For Rural Studies, and organizes them into a digital exhibit. This exhibit is available online and argues the importance of Clyde Cessna’s farm to his career in aviation. Though out his career the farm supported Cessna as he risked life, limb, and wallet to get his airplanes off the ground. This farm in the small town of Rago is historically important to both aviation history and Kansas history as the foundation to one of the state’s greatest inventors and innovators. The project is publicly available at the URL cessnafamilyfarm.omeka.net. The website will be continuously updated as more materials are collected about the homestead and the Cessna family.
