Historic Aircraft at Merrill Field

                                                    Click on a Graphic   Photos by Alex Edwards

 Russel Hyde Merrill

    Merrill Field is a general aviation airport started in 1930 and named after Russel Merrill.  Russel Merrill was an aviator in Alaska who crashed and died in the Cook Inlet September 16, 1926 while flying his Travel Air 7000 which was filled with much needed mining machinery and a load of mail headed for Bethel.  The only recovered part of his aircraft after an extensive search was a piece of cloth found on the western side of cook Inlet near the town of Tyonek. He left behind two children and a wife who later moved to the lower forty-eight.

    Russel Merrill came to anchorage as a former naval aviator from Seward flying his Curtiss F Seagull flying boat.  Shortly after his relocation to anchorage his Flying Boat was destroyed in a storm on Chugach Island.  Though faced with many setbacks he started the Alaska-Oregon-Washington Airplane Company in 1926.  He started it because he felt there was a need for airplane services in Alaska.  After the Alaska-Oregon-Washington Airplane Company failed he went to work at Air Transport Inc. as the main pilot. 

Russel Merrill was key in the pioneering of air routes out of Anchorage and helped the growing transportation hub in anchorage and in Alaska.

The Last Photo of Russ Merrill and his Travel Air 7000.  The Travel Air 7000 and Russ Merrill crashed into the Cook Inlet on the way to the Nyak Mine near Bethel September 16, 1926.