BY BARBARA CLARK
Imagine driving on Cape Cod’s crowded summer roads, navigating the traffic stalls and squalls on Route 28. Should you happen to look for a shortcut and veer off at Route 149 in Marstons Mills, you’ll find yourself on a tree-lined country road dotted with older homesteads and woodlands, stone walls, an old cemetery and a vintage cash market, located there since 1881.
Near a small roundabout, the view suddenly opens up across an expanse of grassy fields dotted with wildflowers. You’ll spot aircraft hangars and a white windmill at the far edge flanked by two vintage DC-3 aircraft and, perhaps, a bright red open cockpit biplane, revving up for a flight.
You’re looking at the Cape Cod Airfield, and it’s a bit like stepping into a time warp. The look of this iconic location has changed very little over the last century, with the airfield’s 100th anniversary coming up in four years.
The airport was created in 1929, when Zenas Crocker of Oyster Harbors (one of numerous Crockers named Zenas in this Cape Cod family) took out a $23,000 mortgage to purchase about 140 spacious acres in the Mills.
Opened with fanfare, aerial feats
The era between World Wars I and II was a high point of interest and excitement for aviation enthusiasts and the general public, and huge crowds turned out for the airfield’s opening day on July 4, 1929, presenting a heady mix of parachute drop demos, aerial acrobatics by aviation pioneer Crocker Snow, a flyover by National Guard planes in formation and seaplane landings on nearby Mystic Lake.
The people who came on board to play roles in the life of the new airfield were not suit-and-tie bureaucrats, but instead included many experienced flyboys, stunt pilots and air entrepreneurs of the day. Many of them saw active military duty defending their country in one or both world wars. Everybody was handson.
In 1930 Zenas Crocker established the Skyways Flying School at the airfield, the first such school on Cape Cod. Run by Crocker Snow, it was in operation until around 1934. For student training flights, the school used the plucky little DeHavilland Gipsy Moth biplanes, at that time built at a factory in Lowell. At first the lack of fuel storage facilities at the airfield meant that for a while the Gipsy aircraft, with the help of their trademark folding wings, were towed two miles by truck to the Marstons Mills Cash Market for refueling.
Massachusetts National Guard maneuvers took place at the airport every summer through 1934, with two-week stays by Guard servicemen. Their Douglas 0-38 observation biplanes could be heard throughout the area, revving their engines in tandem when a training flight was scheduled. Two Zenas Crocker-built hangars stood on the field, one of which still survives today, bearing the faded letters “Cape Cod Flying Service.” Well-heeled Cape Codders bitten by the flight bug could tie down their single-engine toys at the airfield, and there were on-site facilities for continuing maintenance.
Shut ’em down: A clash of Crockers
The rigors of Prohibition put hardly a dent in the neighborhood’s nightlife. The Aviation Club at the airport was the site of a popular nightclub and open bar, overseen by Zenas, “a proprietor…and two men alleged to be bartenders,” according to the Yarmouth Register. That is, until an August night in 1933, with 200 people on hand enjoying themselves, when Zenas’s brother Lauchlan (unfortunately, the county sheriff at the time) and Chief of Police Pratt raided the place and closed it down. The Register reported that “several cases of choice liquor were confiscated.” The newspaper added a further note: “As Chief Pratt entered the alleged barroom he was hit just behind the left ear by a ginger ale bottle thrown with great force and accuracy.”
Other activities kept the airfield busy in those early years, with air shows, military maneuvers and flight training. Newspaper clippings of the time reported that flying ace Amelia Earhart was a celebrated visitor at the air carnival on August 2, 1934, serving as a judge for aerial contests watched by hundreds of spectators.
In 1935 the airport property was acquired by Hilma and William H. Danforth, summer residents of Oyster Harbors. Mrs. Danforth was able to indulge her love for horses, adding stables and creating polo grounds for equestrian contests. Still more areas were developed in the mid-1930s for auto racing, although the latter was fairly short-lived once Mrs. D realized the car noise frightened her ponies.
For office space, the Danforths constructed the picturesque windmill that still stands out on the property and remains a trademark sight for the airfield.
Post-World War II changes
After the end of World War II, the Danforths leased the airfield property to one John Van Arsdale in 1946, and the place was opened as a commercial airport. Van Arsdale advertised his new flight training school, the Cape Cod Flying Service, to recent veterans looking to take advantage of training opportunities offered by the GI Bill: “Hey there, veterans, Come out of the hills. Get your flying started at Marstons Mills.” At that time he had 27 planes equipped for his training program, and the buzz of activity kept up until the late 1940s, when Van Arsdale decamped to Provincetown to inaugurate a new company, Provincetown-Boston Airlines (PBA), the first scheduled air service on Cape Cod.
The PBA organization became a substantial regional carrier both in New England and in South Florida, as routes were expanded. It became the largest commuter airline in the country before being sold off to larger companies in the 1980s and later subsumed by the passenger services of today’s Cape Air.
One of the preferred planes used in this venture was the Douglas DC-3, the legendary transport plane that, according to its history, “revolutionized commercial air travel and played a crucial role in World War II.” Two of the 1940s propeller-driven planes are now part of the picture on the airfield, both airworthy, and occasionally used for sightseeing or a longer business trip.
In 1952 Harry Kornhiser of Centerville, a former barnstormer pilot himself, took over management of the airfield in place of Van Arsdale and became William Danforth’s personal pilot until Danforth’s passing in 1964. The elder Kornhiser died in 1991, and son Rick took over day-to-day airfield management for Hilma Danforth.
County Fair lived there for two decades
The Barnstable County Fair found a popular home at the airfield, operating successfully from 1954 to 1974, incorporating air stunts and skydiving feats to wow spectators, before moving to its new home at the fairgrounds on Route 151.
Well-heeled Cape Codders continued to tie down their private aircraft at the field, and the addition of a new hangar (replacing an original that was downed in the 1944 hurricane) offered good space for aircraft maintenance. The field welcomed glider traffic as well as an occasional blimp touchdown, while flight instruction continued and banner towing was added as a business.
After Rick Kornhiser was killed in 2000 in an accident at another airfield, air activity at the Mills property flagged. Concerned for the possibility that the expansive property could be sold for development in that era of rampant commercial growth, the Danforth family negotiated a sale of 200-plus acres to the Town of Barnstable in 2002. Land Bank funds made the purchase possible and included the stipulation that 80 acres would remain an airfield. But the place needed new management.
Soon after, a small sign appeared at the field: PLEASE SAVE OUR AIRPORT. Who would step up?
The public listened
It is 2025, and a windy day at the Cape Cod Airfield. A huge tow banner advertising a roofing company is laid out on the ground and weighed down, ready to be towed aloft behind a Piper Super Cub during this year’s Boston Marathon. Airfield manager Chris Siderwicz Jr. climbs out of the Piper, stretching his legs after doing an in-air flight check prior to heading to Hopkinton the next day.
Siderwicz noted that during the upcoming high days of summer, younger pilots will mostly tow the long banners, sparing him the cramped space and rationed drinking water necessary for such a flight. For the marathon, he described working the tow: “It’s a young man’s game. …You’re in the air for four to 4.5 hours.”
In 2024 the airfield celebrated its 95th anniversary, thanks in large part to the persistence of Chris Siderwicz (Sr.), who in 2003 spearheaded the campaign to make the airfield a permanent part of Cape Cod history. Siderwicz and his son obtained the initial short-term lease on the airfield property and followed up with a 10-year stewardship that is now up for renewal in 2025. There’s every expectation that the town will renew the lease for another decade.
Siderwicz is justifiably proud of the work he and his father, as managers of the Cape Cod Airfield, have undertaken to preserve and restore the iconic location. Today the Cape Cod Airfield comprises 84 acres within the larger Danforth Recreation Area.
More than 20 private planes call the airfield home, and Siderwicz and son own a number of vintage aircraft between 60 and 80 years old that reside at the field. Among them are two 1940s DC-3s; two open cockpit biplanes (a Waco YMF-5 and a UPF-7) used for popular Cape sightseeing tours; and four bannertowing aircraft. A recent acquisition for the two enthusiasts is a 1943 Cessna Bobcat, a twin-engine trainer affectionately known as a “Bamboo Bomber” due to its largely wood construction, including a one-piece wooden wing. And, said Chris Jr., “It flies.” Not many of these planes remain in airworthy condition today.
The airfield business continues with biplane tours, banner advertising, skydiving operations and tourists, just plain enjoying a day at the airfield among these vintage planes.
About their own love of flying, the younger Siderwicz said, most important is “being able to pass our passion along” to others. A trip into the blue in an open cockpit aircraft is a one-of-a-kind experience. “That smile is not gonna leave you all day.”
“I’m going to operate these aircraft for as long as I can,” he said. What could be better than “being the manager of a historic 95-year-old airfield?”