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In 1960 the Smiths Falls Flying
Club was formed. The Club purchased a small airport from five local men (Bernie
Tugnett, Bob McCrum, Jack Beveridge, Herb Hoeschle and Tom Faulkner), located
on lots 15 and 16, on the fourth concession of Montague Township. Having been a
farm, the Club removed a log house and leveled the pasture land
to provide an acceptable grass landing surface.
In 1971 the Town of Smiths
Falls started talks with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and
Communications
in the hope of improving the facilities so that it might be more acceptable to
public use.
In 1976 the Town of Smiths
Falls made a request for a subsidy to upgrade the standards of the local
airport.
In 1978 with grant money from
the Ontario Government and funding from the Montague Township the runway was
paved
and landing lights were installed. With the new improvements and to reflect the
investments made by Montague Township, the airport was renamed the Smiths
Falls-Montague Airport. The Smiths Falls Flying Club then turned over the
ownership of the airport to the Town of Smiths Falls and Montague Township.
The Smiths Falls Flying Club is responsible for the day to day operation of the
Airport. The improvements permitted local industrialists such as Russell Beach
to travel to Toronto within forty minutes and to keep in touch with sales
offices across Canada.
In 1990 the Smiths
Falls-Montague airport received further grant money which was used to extend
the paved runways, and install fuel pumps and storage.
In 1994 the airport was again
renamed, its is now know as the
Russ Beach
, Smiths Falls-Montague airport in honor of all the contributions Mr. Beach made
to general aviation.
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