Varney Airlines

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Varney Airlines was an airline company that started service on April 6, 1926 as an air-mail carrier. Formed by Walter Varney, the airline was based in Boise, Idaho.

Its first flight under contact with the U.S. Postal Service was from Pasco, Washington to Elko, Nevada. That air freight contract with the U.S. Postal Service grew into the birth of one of the world’s biggest airlines.

The legislative push for the move came in 1925 with the Contract Air Mail Act. The winners of the initial five contracts called Contract Airmail 5, better known as CAM 5, were National Air Transport, Varney Airlines, Western Air Express, Colonial Air Transport, and Robertson Aircraft Corporation.

Varney won the contract as the only bidder. Post Master L.W. Thrailkill had the vision that brought Boise into the aerial age. He heard about the proposed northwest route and Varney’s plan and quickly drew up a petition and got signatures from three dozen postmasters from the towns surrounding Boise.

Pasco at the time was a rail center, more or less midway between Portland, Seattle, and Spokane. Mail trains leaving those cities in the evening arrived in Pasco early the next morning. Mail could be transferred to and from the biplanes cutting coast to coast delivery by days. This was the logic for basing the CAM service in Pasco.

Varney Airlines and National Air Transport eventually became the airline that is now called United Airlines.

Varney soon added Salt Lake City and took on passengers and later merged with Boeing to form United Airlines, United started jet service to Boise on October 26, 1964 and is the only airline to serve Boise continuously since 1933. With the Beeson terminal remodeling at the airport, the last Varney building was torn down in 2002. April 6, 2006 marks United Airlines' 80th birthday.

[edit] First flight

Pilot Leon Cuddeback flew the first flight, leaving in the early dawn hours from Pasco, Washington. Between 4,000 and 6,000 cheering people sent the pilot off with 207 pounds of mail. Cuddeback flew a Curtis Swallow bi-plane with a top speed of 90 miles per hour. The flight to Boise lasted about four hours. Cuddeback handed the first sack of mail to Post Master Thrailkill.

Ground crews fueled the plane, while Cuddeback enjoyed a cup of coffee and a sandwich and then headed for Elko.

Cuddeback’s flight was uneventful and he landed safely in Elko. There he handed the mail over to Pilot Franklin Rose, and loaded up for the return to Pasco.