Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology

The venture nearly ended when Parks crashed a Laird Swallow training aircraft leaving only one remaining trainer and was unable to teach lessons while in the hospital.

During the great depression, the Detroit Aircraft Corporation bought up eighty percent of the stock as part of a large merger of aviation entities.

[2][3] The college students manufactured their own series of biplane aircraft, including the Parks P-2A, which became the "hero" of books by author Richard Bach.

[7] By 1936 enrollment reached 200 students, with a training fleet that consisted of 49 aircraft including the Kinner Sportster and Lambert Twin Monocoach.

[9] In 1938 Oliver Parks, (representing Parks Air College,) Curtis-Wright Technical Institute, and Boeing School of Aeronautics were requested by Gen Arnold to establish, at their own risk, a Civilian Pilot Training Program including barracks and aircraft to provide basic training for thousands of pilots.

[10] As enrollment swelled, Parks further expanded his facilities to include operations at Cape Girardeau and Sikeston, Missouri, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi.

[13] Following the rapid decline in wartime training, Parks concluded that future aviation leaders would need a broader, more academic education.

Parks donated the college valued at $3 million to Saint Louis University in 1946, remembering the Jesuit help he received after his 1928 air crash.

[14] Wernher von Braun donated a V-2 rocket engine from the White Sands Missile Range to the college after a visit in the 1950s.