The war to end all wars – World War I – was over. America was heading into the Roaring Twenties. Indeed, business was poised to boom – with the exception of the fledgling aviation industry. This idea, launched 15 years earlier during a brief takeoff at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was on hold. A team of nearly 300 carpenters, cabinetmakers and seamstresses working in a warehouse along Seattle's Duwamish River were scrambling to make ends meet. William Boeing had brought the group together in previous years to build seaplanes for the U.S. military. Boeing's crew would grow over the next decade to become the largest aviation operation in the world. Still, for now, they built furniture, speedboats, and anything else that would make money until planes grew too big to become an oddity. "Wall Street would not invest in the airline industry," said Robert van der Linden, president of the aeronautics division of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum. “It was so new, so raw and so unproven that no one wanted to risk an investment.” Boeing's view was longer. He recognized the potential of aviation and saw how quickly the world around him was changing. The technology presented challenges so "new and unusual," he said, "that it behooves no one to dismiss a new idea by declaring that it cannot." Soaring CashBoeing (1881-1956) had an advantage over his competitors: money. The Detroit native left Yale University in 1903 – the year the Wright brothers took off – to head to the Pacific Northwest. He then farmed. Boeing also inherited a large share of the mining rights in the iron ore-rich Mesabi Range of Minnesota which bore his name. turned aviator focused on breeding thoroughbred horses But the company he founded will remain one of the two largest aircraft manufacturers in the world and remains the largest export company in the United States. “Boeing took the plane from being a curiosity,” Lombardi said, “to being a tool that ran the country’s commerce. “Works Cited” William Boeing’s Airline Boost; See The Horizon: His sense of technology and talent pointed the planes in the right direction. Investor's Business Daily August 7, 2007: A03. Gale Student Resources in Context. Internet. November 13, 2011. http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/suic/NewsDetailsPage/NewsDetailsWindow?displayGroupName=News&disableHighlighting=false&prodId=SUIC&action=e&windowstate=normal&catId=&documentId=GALE%7CA192580366&mode=view&userGroupName=west34111&jsid = c0c3471468b48bcbd7ba5020f7581646