Conard Field

This farm of 1000 acres on the left was purchased in 1899 by the Conard brothers from I.S. Kalloch, one of the founders of Ottawa, and is owned by Francis Conard Dunn, who makes her home here. The farm home of pressed brick and frame was built by her father, John Conard, from a Washburn design. Conard established and airstrip here in 1917 in the wide fields adjacent to the road, and known as on of the oldest landing strips in Kansas. The first transcontinental plane trip in 1911 stopped at the field. Lights were added and rotating beacons guided airmail pilots from the 1930s on route from Texas to Chicago. The field was used as a training site in World War || and was designated an emergency landing field recording 200 emergency landings. Both Conard and his wife were weather observers