There was an aviation industry in Kansas before there was aviation.

In 1900 — three years before the Wright brothers flew their airplane at Kitty Hawk, N.C. — Carl Dryden Browne built an airplane factory in Freedom, Kan.

He never flew an aircraft. In 1902, Browne’s factory closed. North Carolina became known as the “Birthplace of Flight.”

But today Kansas, not North Carolina, is known as the “Air Capital of the World.” Since 1919, according to state estimates, more than a quarter-million aircraft have been built in Kansas, mostly in Wichita.

“When I speak to people, I say (we) call Wichita the air capital of the world,” said Teresa Day, director of the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita. “But Kansas, overall, is the center of it all, not just because we produce the planes, but because of the heritage. From the very earliest days we had innovators producing just fabulous aircraft.”

The evolution of flight is illustrated in two models in the Statehouse office of Lt. Gov. John Moore, a former Cessna executive: One is a model of the Wright Flyer, the other of a Cessna Citation X business jet. Moore said he also saw a sense of the spirit of entrepreneurs who came to Wichita with the goal of going higher and faster.

“What you have to remember is, as they were building aircraft, they were learning to fly,” Moore said.

Today, the aircraft industry in Kansas provides 18 percent of the state’s manufacturing jobs. More than 32,000 people in Wichita alone are employed by Boeing, Cessna, Raytheon and Bombardier/Learjet. An additional 1,000 people are employed at a Honeywell avionics plant in Olathe.

“There’s no question it’s a very important industry in Kansas — particularly in south-central Kansas,” said Steve Kelly, director of business development for the Kansas Department of Commerce and Housing.

‘Pure promotion’

It began with oil money, a flatter-than-a-pancake landscape and a convergence of mechanical talent.

The air revolution started slowly, though.

It wasn’t until 1911, eight years after the Wright brothers’ flight, that Albin K. Longren of Topeka built and flew the first airplane made in Kansas.

He promptly disappeared into history.

Photo gallery: History of Flight History of flight in Kansas predates Wright brothers World flight timeline Kansas Aviation Museum

“By the late teens, oil was discovered in Butler County,” Day said. “So there was money to be thrown at the aircraft industry.”

One of the early oilmen was Jake Moellendick. In 1920, he partnered with E.M. “Matty” Laird, and they started building Swallow aircraft in Wichita — 43 between 1920 and 1923. An industry was born.

“The Swallow aircraft was the first plane specifically made for production,” Day said. “That was sort of the benchmark.”

But why Kansas? After all, Moellendick was from Oklahoma, Laird from Chicago.

There are differing theories.

“We have a lot of days of sunshine and flying weather, days where it’s possible to fly planes, as well as wind giving relative lift to planes,” said Bernie Koch, vice president of communications for the Wichita Area Chamber of Commerce.

“It’s flat and provides you with lots of opportunities for runways — in case you have any problems, you can land pretty quickly,” said Jessica Myers, a spokeswoman for Cessna Aircraft Co. in Wichita.

Craig Miner, a business history professor at Wichita State University, doesn’t buy it.

“People have tried to talk me into saying that we had a flatter landscape or better weather, but that could’ve been Oklahoma,” he said. “It was just pure promotion. There was no reason.”

Miner said Marcellus Murdoch, editor of the Wichita Eagle during those early years, reputedly made the Eagle the first American newspaper to own an airplane.

“He was willing to promote ‘air-mindedness’ in Wichita, make it seem exciting,” Miner said.

Wichita was not alone as an aviation community in the early days, but it was the most successful.

Longren built planes in Topeka from 1911 to 1926, making the first successful flight of a Kansas-built plane in Kansas on Sept. 2, 1911.

In Girard starting in 1908, Henry Call built more than a dozen aircraft, but only one ever flew.

In Goodland, two former railroad machinists created the helicopter in 1909, and the federal government granted them a patent in 1910 for the first rotary-winged aircraft in the nation.

‘Critical mass’

But Swallow built more than airplanes; it gave some aviation names a start. Lloyd Stearman, Clyde Cessna and Walter Beech were among those manufacturing Swallows. All went on to form their own airplane manufacturing companies.

“They built a cadre of skilled people who knew how to do aircraft work,” Miner said. “There started to be enough critical mass that new companies started to be attracted by others.”

The fledgling industry slumped, with the rest of the economy, during the 1930s. But it was solidified and saved by World War II and the Cold War that followed.

It wasn’t an accident, either. As war loomed, the state formed the Kansas Industrial Development Commission, which “camped out in Washington and really lobbied to have (defense-related) manufacturing done in the Midwest,” Miner said.

During World War II, more than 50,000 people in Wichita were working in aviation and related industries, churning out bombers and other warplanes — up from fewer than 6,000 in 1939.

“The population of Wichita basically doubled during those years, from 100,000 to 200,000,” Miner said. “It was a big thing.”

During World War II, Boeing employed more than 29,000 people, building gliders and the B-29 Superfortress, the plane that dropped atomic bombs on Japan. Top production was reached in 1945, when 4.2 bombers rolled out daily during the “Battle of Kansas.”

However, when the war ended, thousands of workers lost their jobs, including more than 16,000 in one day at Boeing.

But the industry survived, and thrived.

And the more airplane manufacturers concentrated their business in Kansas, the more other manufacturers and suppliers wanted to move here as well.

“Despite the fact the industry is global, there are advantages to having proximity to a concentration of manufacturers,” Kelly said. “That puts them in range where they can more effectively interface with companies in Wichita and the surrounding area.”

The result: airplane manufacturing became more than a business. It’s now as much a part of the Kansas cultural fabric as farming.

“We have a lot of people who have their father, their brother, their cousin, whoever it might be working here,” said Cessna’s Myers. “We’ve had people who’ve had four generations working here.”

Fat, lean times

Through the years, the industry has gone through cycles of fat prosperity and dangerously lean times that resulted in the layoffs of thousands of Kansas workers.

The post-Sept. 11 era has been example of the latter. Proving how important a role it plays, tough times in aviation ripple through the rest of the state’s economy.

“It’s been a tough two or three years,” Kelly said. “I think what people miss is when Boeing is hurting, or Cessna or Bombardier, it’s tough for those folks — but it also filters out throughout the rest of the chain.”

But there are signs the good times could return.

The Kansas Legislature this year approved providing $500 million in bonds to help Boeing’s Wichita plant secure participation in the manufacturing of the 7E7, the company’s next airliner.

“Legislators in general, regardless of party, could see a real threat” to the industry, Kelly said.

Company officials were to decide this week how to proceed with the program.

Kelly said the state’s air industry may in the future focus less on manufacturing and more on refurbishing the planes that are already flying.

“A lot of planes are in service for 20, 30 years,” Kelly said. “There are a lot of things that can happen. It’s been a cyclical business, but there’s hope that you could level it out a little bit.”

But business experts across the state are also talking about the need to become less dependent on the aviation economy.

“I think the community, as a result of what has happened, understands the need to diversify,” Koch said. “It’s amazing, but Wichita doesn’t even have an industrial park. I think aviation prosperity masked our shortcomings in some of those areas.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.