HATHORN, Charles Edward

HATHORN, JONES

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 5/7/2014 at 05:44:53

The Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
Saturday, April 06, 1940, Page 16

THEY STARTED HERE

No. 3 in a Mason City Series of Success Stories

CHARLES EDWARD HATHORN, Aviation Engineer

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A career that leads from a county blacksmith shop to a top post in one of the country's leading aircraft manufacturing plants is that of Charles E. Hathorn, former Mason Cityan and brother of W. H. Hathorn of Mason City.

Mr. Hathorn's story is that of a man who likes his work better than eating and it is because of his intense interest in the engineering and mechanics of aeronautics that he has risen above the handicap of a lack of formal education to occupy the important position he holds at the present time.

Mr. Hathorn is now patient engineer at the Curtiss-Wright aircraft plant at Buffalo, N.Y. Here he takes the inventions and ideas developed by Curtiss-Wright engineers and other employes (sic) and tests their practicability, making improvements if possible and then drawing up the technical information needed by the company attorneys in taking out patents on various devices.

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Mr. Hathorn was born on a farm two and a half miles northeast of Clear Lake on Dec. 6, 1879. His father farmed the property and in addition ran a country blacksmith shop.

So from his earliest days when he was barely able to toddle, the future aeronautical engineer was associated with things mechanical. He grew up in an atmosphere of mechanics in a day when a blacksmith had to be able to fix almost anything.

In 1890 the Hathorns left farming altogether and moved in Mason City, where the head of the family started a foundry and machine shop. It was here that Charles Hathorn had his first actual experience along the lines that later were to bring him recognition as one of the best mechanics in the state.

In 1903, then a young man 23 years old, he went to Davenport to work for a Pierce-Arrow automobile agency, returning to Mason City in 1906. It was at this time that he and his brother started a garage here.

* * *

Two years later at Kitty Hawk, N. Car., Wilbur and Orville Wright fathered the airplane and it was not long before the effect of that epoch making event was felt in Mason City.

Three years later, in 1911, Charles Hathorn built his first airplane, using drawings of a Curtiss type biplane. There was little power in the motor and the craft was of the home made variety, but it could fly a little.

The machine was able to get off the ground and under favorable conditions clear a haystack, but as a general rule the length of the pasture was about all it could accomplish in distance. The plane he built was the first the young mechanic ever saw.

In 1914, after selling his share of the garage to W. H. Hathorn, Charles went back to Davenport to work in the sales department of the same Pierce-Arrow agency with which he was previously connected.

* * *

Then the war came and with it the chance to work at the Pierce-Arrow factory at Buffalo, as superintendent of the overland delivery trucks to points of embarkation for France.

This job didn't last long, however, for when he was in New York City with his first caravan of trucks, Mr. Hathon went to Hempstead on Long Island and asked officials of the Curtiss company to give him a job, saying he would take anything so long as it was with the Curtiss company. So they gave him a job - just a step above that of a janitor. He was put to work oiling machinery and looking after the cars of the company officials. But he didn't mind the drop from a fairly good position to the one he had, for it put him in the industry that most interested him.

Before long he was promoted and then again. Finally he became a project engineer, the man who is put in charge of an order of planes and is responsible for seeing that they are assembled and shipped in proper fashion.

* * *

From there he went to his present position, patent engineer.

The former Mason Cityan is well qualified to be a patent engineer, for he holds patents on 21 devices himself. Sixteen of these have been put to practical use. Outstanding among the devices is the "sliding cabin," a covering widely used for open cockpit planes.

Mr. Hathorn is also given credit for perfecting the Reed metal propeller, the first metal propeller to be used successfully. He overcame the problem of crystallization of the metal under heavy vibration and thus made possible the universal use of metal "props" today.

All Curtiss-Wright planes are named for birds and it is interesting to note that the famous "helldiver" ship of a few years ago was named by the former local man. Asked what he thought would be a good name for the then unchristened model, Mr. Hathorn replied that when he was a boy there was a bird around Clear Lake that was called a "helldiver" and that in his estimation the projected plane was to be much the same.

* * *

All planes made at the Buffalo plant are made for various governments, nearly all of them being military craft. Many of the United States government's secret aeronautical devices are thus in part at least in the hands of the former Mason City man.

Mr. Hathorn is active in the social organizations of his profession, including the Buffalo chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers, of which he has served as secretary. He was recently given the sole nomination for vice president of the group. The Buffalo chapter is unusually strong because of the great number of automotive engineers in the Curtiss-Wright and other plants.

Mrs. Charles Hathorn is a former Clear Lake girl, Hazel Jones. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins university and holds a master's degree from Columbia university, where she specialized in educational work.

Sharing his uncle's interest in aviation and one of the most active promoters of a municipal airport for Mason City is W. B. Hathorn, son of W. H. Hathorn.

NOTE: Charles Edward Hathorn was born December 6, 1879 in Cerro Gordo County, and died May 21, 1955. Charles' wife, Hazel L. (Jones) Hathorn, was born December 29, 1890, and died May 29, 1955. They were interred at Clear Lake Cemetery, Clear Lake, Iowa.

Photograph courtesy of Globe-Gazette

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2014

Cerro Gordo Biographies maintained by Lynn Diemer-Mathews.
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