It was the Roaring 20s, also known as the Jazz Age, but it was also known as the Golden Age of Aviation.

Following World War I the country was abuzz with flying circuses, women walking on wings and barnstormers that offered rides on biplanes.Charles Lindbergh in 1927 had flown solo nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.The following year, not to be outdone, James Dole, head of the Dole Pineapple Company, sponsored a race to fly from the mainland to Hawaii.Top prize was $25,000 for the winner; $10,000 for the second-place finisher.A 27-year-old by the name of Martin Jensen, who previously taught aeronautics in Pennsylvania, took off from Oakland with his navigator, Paul Schutter, in an airplane named Aloha claiming second-place money when they landed in Honolulu. The race claimed 11 lives. Two planes that took off were never heard from again.Jensen wanted to build airplanes and found there was too much competition on the West Coast, so he started to look what was 100 miles from New York City via air.He found Lehighton met his needs for closeness along with cheap labor.On Oct. 21, 1928, the Martin Jensen Flying Field was dedicated on part of the land that would later become the Carbon County Fairgrounds.It seemed that the whole town came out in their finery to look at the flying machines that had landed to commemorate the day and the future of aviation in Lehighton.The grass field lay east and west of Ninth Street.Landing from the east you would have landed over mainly undeveloped lots, as Lehighton hadn't grown that far out, coming in over what today is the Howland Dental Offices. Today it is a part of the Lehighton Area School District Complex.To build what was to be called the Jensen Sport Trainer, the new company the Martin Jensen Aviation Company needed a hangar, and so a hangar was built which later the fair used as an exhibition hall.He also started to look for workers. Caught up in the frenzy of aviation was a local man by the name of Jake Arner.The single 20-year-old laid-off New Jersey Zinc worker teamed up with the then-world famous pilot.Jensen needed a mechanic, but couldn't afford one, and apparently Arner was looking for an adventure, so Arner worked for flying lessons. Unfortunately only one plane was completed with a couple more partially built before the Depression hit and the company failed.Lehighton's airplane manufacturing legacy was short-lived.Left was the legacy of the grass field that Arner took over and nurtured.Later he changed its name to the Lehighton Airport. The airport continued to serve the community until the early 1960s when Arner and others lobbied for the new airport that was then constructed on farmland in Mahoning Valley, where it remains today.As for Jensen, he continued to live an illustrious career in aviation, including flying the MGM Lion across the country from California to New York - although he crashed landed in Arizona, but neither him or the lion were hurt.He ended his working career with for Douglas Aircraft Company as an engineering troubleshooter through the mid-1960s, but continued to do aviation research until he died at the age of 92.