Their financial backer helped them purchase a larger plane with an enclosed cabin which supported winter operations.

There was a surplus of airplanes, and not enough business to support them all, which prompted the 1934 merger of McGee Airways with Star Air Service.

The new owners acquired three smaller Alaska carriers, gaining additional scheduled routes to Fairbanks, Nome and the Kuskokwim area.

In September 1943, after narrowly beating a competitor who was also filing for the name, the company was renamed again, becoming Alaska Airlines, which continues to operate today.

[1][2][3][4][5] Steven E. "Steve" Mills was born in Dayton, Wyoming, in 1896 and moved to Seattle after serving in World War I.

[1][2] John E. "Jack" Waterworth was born in Oelwein, Iowa, reared in Seattle and attended the University of Washington studying to be a pharmacist.

[1] With financial help from the industrialist Norton Clapp, Jack took flying lessons from Steve Mills at Washington Aircraft Company.

He made numerous flights throughout the northwest and an occasional cross-country trip to ferry planes from the east coast to Seattle.

[2] Charles H. "Charlie" Ruttan was a 22-year-old Canadian from Winnipeg, Manitoba, who had moved with his family to Victoria, British Columbia, and took flying lessons from Steve Mills.

[1][2] Mills and Waterworth were anxious to start a flying school and charter business in Seattle with hopes of expanding to Alaska.

Mills, who was married and the father of two sons, mortgaged his home, and he and Waterworth purchased a two-place Davis monoplane, and started Northern Air Service.

[2] In the early spring of 1932, they shipped the Fleet biplane to Seward, Alaska, on the SS Yukon steamship, arriving March 26, 1932.

Al Monsen, who flew for Pacific International Airways, the Pan American subsidiary, borrowed the Fleet for a local charter flight.

With more financial help from Earl Dunkle, they purchased a three-place Curtiss Robin which had an enclosed cockpit, allowing better winter operations.

These companies helped make Anchorage the major city in Alaska, overtaking Fairbanks in the competition for business, government contracts and international attention.

[5][6][7] There was a surplus of airplanes and not enough business to allow the companies to accumulate sufficient cash reserves to survive through difficult times.

[1][2][6][9] The merger made Star Air Service the largest airline in Alaska, but money was not coming in as hoped for, and McGee was called back from his Kobuk mining operation to take over management of the company.

On Sunday August 30, 1936, Mills took a group of two married couples and a single man on an all-day fishing trip to Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula.

[6] McGee bought Alaska Interior Airlines, adding two pilots and two planes to the fleet, and got the company back into good condition.

[7] This ended the free-wheeling bush flying era of Alaska aviation, and assigned specific routes to the air carriers.

[2] At its peak before World War II, Star Air Lines had a fleet of 15 planes and had radio stations scattered across the Kuskokwim and Yukon deltas and down to Bristol Bay.

[2] The Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) hearings in 1940 increased government control over Alaska's airlines which completely reshaped the industry.

He hired Homer Robinson, a New York attorney experienced in aircraft sales and aviation transactions, as a broker.

Robinson was a close associate of Raymond W. Marshall, a wealthy international junk dealer who had made a fortune selling scrapped railroad equipment to South American companies, as well as other ventures.

[1][2][12] The original Star Air Service plane, the Fleet 7 open-cockpit biplane had a three-line identification painted on the side with a barnstar between the words "Flight" & "Instruction" in the middle line.

They flew single engine aircraft all over the Territory, with no weather reports, no navigation aids, no radios, not even good maps.