The Oakland Aviation Museum, which is at Oakland International Airport’s historic North Field (OAK) in California, recently acquired the Will Dale Auerbach photographic collection.
Auerbach was a local contract photographer for United Airlines, the Boeing School of Aeronautics and the Port of Oakland in the mid-1930s. The collection documents a pivotal time in aviation history and the many aeronautical achievements being made at Oakland Municipal Airport from 1936 to the early 1940s, when the Army Air Corp took over Oakland Airport for military activities, museum officials note.
The collection is currently being processed by museum staff and volunteers. It is expected that this work will take approximately two to three months to complete.
“The collection is amazingly intact, given its long journey here to the museum.” says Director Pamela Kruse-Buckingham. “The collection traveled through three different owners and several states, and is now accepted as a permanent collection of the Oakland Aviation Museum.”
She adds museum officials would be greatly interested in interviewing anyone who knew Auerbach. He lived in Alameda during his photographic career in the Bay Area, but passed away in is home state of Indiana in 1971. He was a graduate of the University of California at Davis in 1923, and was involved with the California Wool Growers Association, as well as with aviation.
For more information: 510-638-7100 or OaklandAviationMuseum.org
