Paul E. Garber

Paul Edward Garber (August 31, 1899 - September 23, 1992) was the first head of the National Air Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.

[1] Garber was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, but spent his childhood in Washington, D.C., and grew up with clear memories of flight demonstrations by the Wright Brothers at Fort Myer, Virginia in 1909.

Gen. Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, commander of the U.S. Army Air Forces, presented the Smithsonian with a collection of U.S. and enemy aircraft.

When Paul Garber accepted responsibility for this vast collection, it was stored in an abandoned airplane factory in suburban Chicago, now the site of O'Hare Airport.

Determined to safely relocate the treasures to the Washington area, Garber searched in vain for empty warehouse space in the vicinity of the nation's capital.

He then persuaded a pilot friend to assist him in conducting an aerial survey of the Maryland and Virginia suburbs from the cockpit of a Piper J-3 Cub.

Garber persuaded a local contractor to donate any excess cement remaining aboard his trucks at the end of the workday.

Paul E. Garber spent his later years giving programs and relating the stories about the beginning and progress of flying history.

He was preceded in death by his wife Irene and survived by two sons, James Paul and Edward Williams and a daughter Barbara Jane (passed in 1993).