2: Aviation Crusaders

Three years after William and Annie Pawley’s wedding, his father began construction of Haiti’s “first modern hotel” on Bizoton Road in Port-au-Prince. Described as “the pride of the capital’s picturesque suburban country,” the 35-bedroom-suite hotel on Edward Porcher Pawley’s property was designed to attract guests by providing on-premises dining and dancing, a rooftop garden with views of the mountains and the bay, and access to swimming, boating, golfing, horseback riding, tennis courts and trap shooting.”1 (A century later, E.P. Pawley’s tropical paradise was considered the “most dangerous city” on the planet with profound famine fed by the ravages of hurricanes, earthquakes, cholera, poverty, gang warfare and political assassinations for control of most streets. Once beautiful, Haiti also was scarred by extreme deforestation as trees became a cheaper fuel alternative to gas and electricity.2)

By 1926, the knowledge William had gained from his father was beginning to pay off. He was on his way to becoming a millionaire in the Florida land speculation boom.3 While many took a major financial hit three years later when the Florida real estate bubble burst, William Pawley stayed afloat, having already shifted his attention elsewhere.

In 1927, Pawley went to Puerto Rico as a Curtiss Aviation representative.4 It was a life-changing career move that soon returned him to Cuba. In 1929, as the stock market roared toward a collapse, Pawley and Clement Melville Keys organized Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviacion Curtiss operating out of Havana with the intention of providing passenger service, air mail service, air taxi service, pilot training, aircraft sales and aerial photography to enhance agricultural production.5 From a corporate structure point of view, the Cuban airline’s parent company was Intercontinent Aviation, Inc. which was formed as a subsidiary of the Curtiss-Keys group of aviation companies. Among the founders was financier Clarence Douglas Dillion, father of future Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillion.6

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