Ralph P. Newhall and his brother-in-law Walter J. Maguire (an agent for the Shell Eastern Petroleum Corporation) started the Eagle Flying Service on the property in 1930.

When Newhall and Maguire sought to extricate themselves from the flying business, they persuaded Apte to take over the operation on a year-to-year lease arrangement working on a percentage basis.

When the US entered World War II in December 1941 following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Apte closed the White Mountain Airport operation and joined the Coastal Air Patrol as a 1st Lieutenant Pilot.

The Airport Corporation was dissolved May 4, 1943, and sold the property to Apte in July 1943, who had by that time acquired 101 of the original 108 shares.

By the mid-1970s Bunky had made the airport into a busy tourist attraction with a fleet of five Waco UPF-7 open cockpit bi-planes, a helicopter, sailplane, and several Piper and Cessna aircraft providing scenic rides and charter flights.

This resulted in a significant overhaul of property taxes which made it impossible to make the airport a financial success.

Wylie Apte sold the property to developers who established the Settlers' Green Outlet Village on the site in 1988.

[3] The airport and Wylie Apte, Sr. played a role in several search and rescue efforts over the years, flying missions for the forest fire patrol, lost persons, drowning accidents, hospital patients, and the Northeast airline tragedy.

Some of the more notable early search and rescue efforts from the White Mountain Airport included the following: In June 1933, Joseph Simon, a young man from Brookline, Massachusetts, was lost while hiking with friends to the Lakes of the Clouds on Mount Washington.

Apte conducted an aerial search for Simon, flying low over the wooded terrain in dangerous air currents over Mount Washington for two days.

In October 1941, five-year-old Pamela Hollingsworth, daughter of a prominent Lowell, Massachusetts, businessman, was lost in the woods near Albany, New Hampshire, and Mount Chocorua, setting off a kidnapping scare and massive eight-day search involving hundreds of searchers.

In August 1952 Charlotte Cook from Windham Center, Connecticut, disappeared in the White Mountain National Forest.

At the time, he and others were exploring ridge conditions in the east central area of New Hampshire, when he found himself on top of the clouds just west of North Conway Airport.