Last year in late December, a family of pilots, mechanics, and relatives came together for that last goodbye to a special place – Andrau Airpark. Many traveled from hundreds of miles away to make this pilgrimage and to reminisce about its past, early friendships and impact on their lives.
Once this field-700 acres of pastureland-had as its tenants, coyotes, raccoons and a few rabbits smack on Houston’s west side. You would have to ask him, a young Swiss-educated petroleum geophysicist and rice farmer of Dutch parentage, whatever possessed him to put all his dreams on this place, in his adopted country. A young pilot- Evert Willem Karen Andrau- had worked all over the world for Royal Dutch Shell and organized and headed the Civil Air Patrol in Houston just as World War II broke out.
After the war, he and his young bride, Helene, returned to Houston, a world center of the oil industry. Andrau, nicknamed the “flying Dutchman” traveled often to oilfield leases in Louisiana, Texas, and other exotic places. Eventually, he built a landing strip and hangar on his land, enjoying his farms at the airport site and in Brazoria County. But soon others began to ask to use his landing strip and before Andrau knew it, he was in the airport business: selling fuel, maintenance, and hangar space.
Then, on Sept. 20, 1951, early in the airpark’s beginning, Andrau was killed in a plane crash. Flying his beloved “Dove” -a twin-engine DeHavilland Dove-he went down in a rice field near Lake Charles, La. The cause of the accident was never determined.
Andrau’s widow, Helene, took over the management of the airpark, which at that time consisted of seven hangars and an asphalt runway. During the next two decades, working diligently from her small house next to the airstrip, Helene upgraded her asphalt runways to concrete and built a two-story terminal with a restaurant. Certainly, this was a lasting legacy to her husband. Helene died in 1995.
“We are losing an average of one airport a week in the United States,” said Warren Morningstar, spokesperson for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. There are many reasons: rising land values drive up property taxes and make selling too attractive to pass up; residents who arrive long after the airports were built, and complain about noise and alleged safety hazards; and the increasing costs of buying and ensuring a plane which are driven up by product liability lawsuits against manufacturers. Morningstar continues, “At the same time that we are losing these airports, we are increasing the number of flights and there is an increasing demand for airport capacity.” How ironic, indeed!
Perhaps, sad as it is, it is time to rest-the old rice fields are now covered with scrub oak, pine and brush. One of two runways is closed and the irrigation canal where youngsters fished and seaplanes glided in and out has long been silted up. Yes, 52 years of operation is a long, long time . . .
