If you've ever driven through Greybull, you may have noticed a small fleet of planes parked behind the rest area.
Wander back there.
It's a museum dedicated to the trade of aerial firefightin and Hawkins and Powers.
Well, the whole company started more or less back in 1947.
Mel Christler, when he first got out of the military, started to come to Greybull met a guy in Greybull by the name of Morris Avery and start a flying business, which amounted to small airplanes like Super Cubs or Cubs, for spraying and then also training.
They named the company Christler and Avery Aviation.
Christler and Avery Aviation started buying up aircraft in the 50s and 60s to use for spraying contracts, which was their main business at the time.
Christler split off to start an aviation company in Thermopolis But Morris Avery remained in Greybull to run Avery aviation.
1964 is when my dad, Dan Hawkins, was hired by Morris Avery as a helicopter pilot.
Gene Powers went to work for Morris as a big airplane pilot.
And then, of course, in 1965 is when Morris passed away.
So my dad and Gene were made managers of of Avery Aviation, and they did that until 1969.
And then in 1969, they they bought it and renamed it Hawkins and Powers Aviation.
Hawkins' and Powers used their aircraft to fulfill spraying contracts.
You know, a lot of crop spraying and stuff like that was what it started out to be to begin with.
Typically, it was a government contract and it could be anywher from anything like spraying sagebrush, fire ants, mosquitoe spraying was another one.
As the company grew, they would hire more pilots and aircraft for them to fly, most every airplane, large airplane that we owned was ex military.
There's a big boneyard for the military down Davis Monthan in Tucson, Arizona.
And that's where a lot of the aircraft come from You would bid on them to acquire them from the military.
The company had to retrofit the military planes to suit their needs first for spring and later for firefighting.
You know, to convert an airplane, you know, you'd have to, for the most part, put some sort of a tank system in it for the spraying have to put spray booms on them pump systems in them.
And, you know, you have to have emergency dump system on them.
So the emergency dump system could be used for the firefighting part of it In the late 50s, Christler and Avery approached the Forest Service about using one of their spraying aircraft to help with the firefighting operation And he just put water in it and they allowed him to do it.
So he put water in it and went up and dumped on fire up there.
So that was probably the first firefighting that our company had anything to do with.
Using aircraft to help fight fires was a novel idea.
Pilots tried developing different systems, but the ability to dump a lot of liquid quickly was what made aircraft a feasible tool for fighting fires.
Well, after Gene went to work for Morris in sixty five, well then that's kind of when the firefighting started for Avery Aviation at that time.
And we started acquiring contracts in Alaska in the lower 48 to fight fires.
Typically on a like a helicopter contract, you were considered the initial attack, what they was trying to do is once they have a start, well then the helicopter could get people out there or drop water on the on the fire to maybe keep it at a smaller containment, the helicopters or airplanes.
Neither one are going to put the fire out, probably, but it's just part of the equipment needed to fight a fire to help the people on the ground.
In 1974, after I got out of the military, well, I came back and went to work for my dad and Gene and I ended up getting the rest of my ratings, you know, multi engine rating, instrument rating, helicopter rating.
And so that's when I basically got into the business for flying part of it.
Bob followed his father's footsteps and learned the helicopter portion of the operation.
While Duane Powers joined the company and specialized in the fixed wing aircraft portion of operations like his father, Gene and Hawkins and Powers, and at the height of everything we probably run about 60, 70 aircraft.
You know, that be little airplanes, helicopters and the large airplanes.
And that then in 2002.
Timeframe, we had about 200 people working for us just in the Greybull Office.
In 2002, within a month of each other two Hawkins and and Powers, planes experienced structural failure and crashed while fulfilling firefighting contracts.
So after that happened, while the Forest Service wasn't willing to use that type of aircraft anymore on their contract, so they canceled those type of contracts, which was probably 70 percent of our fleet.
So then we went for another two years and tried to finish up contracts that we had and stuff like that.
But after that, we could see that, you know, without a big change and a lot of money if we weren' going to be able to go forward.
So we just decided to get out of the business and .
That was the end of it.
Well, the museum basically got started by Duane and myself in in the late 80s.
They talked me into opening it back up again, and we moved it to this area where we're at now.
Behind the rest area.
And that's been since 2015.
All of these somewhere or another either were firefighting aircraft or are the type that we use for firefighting.
Hawkins And Powers was at its height a World-Class firefighting operation.
Their work helped to pioneer aerial firefighting and their legacy will live on.
We were considered the world's largest for several years, their privately owned firefighting operation.