05/27/2026
⛈Forecasting weather from BA - with a kite!🪁
Early in the history of the agency, the Weather Bureau recognized that measurements of the upper atmosphere were critical to expand the science of weather forecasting.
In the fall of 1917, Broken Arrow Pioneer, Mr. F.S. Hurd received a visit from weatherman V.E. Jakl, who was looking for a place with wind - lots of wind, a never-ending and inexhaustible supply of it - to carry kites into the sky.
Betty Knight Broach, F.S. Hurd's granddaughter, says that her grandfather obtained the land. "My grandfather bought the land for the purpose of the weather station," she said. Hurd leased the land to the government for $1 a year. The land stayed in the Hurd family until Ms. Broach sold the final 14 acres to Gatesway. The round house stayed on the property until 1980, when it was finally removed for Gatesway expansion.
Professor Charles F. Marvin, in charge of the Weather Bureau's Instrument Division, was directed by then Chief, Willis Moore to study methods for sustaining automatic instruments at high elevations. Marvin's work utilized a self designed lightweight meteorograph attached to a box kite design by Australian Lawrence Hargrave, tethered to the ground by piano wire.
Kite stations were established at six locations in 1918 in the central and eastern U.S.: Ellendale, N.D., Drexel, Neb., Royal Center, Ind., Groesbeck, Tex., Leesburg, Ga., and Broken Arrow, Okla. The Broken Arrow Ledger reported on August 15, 1918 that the areological station, known as the Broken Arrow Areological Station, opened east of town. It was located on East College Street where the Gatesway Foundation is today. The station was equipped with 25 kites and were flown daily. They would put up as many as four kites, one hitched at about 500 foot intervals from the top kite which held the measuring instruments. They were all held together with 5 miles of piano wire. The largest was 9 feet wide by 4 feet wide deep. The kites were launched, and retrieved, from the back of a Ford Model T. Although the station was noted as a kite center, sounding balloons also took off from BA. It was staffed by Henry Adams, J.A. Reihle, Paul Hartman, Chessor Bowles, Leslie Warren, Wallace Malone, Lois Keeter and Elmer Moody.
One story reported was on a windy day in March, the line parted while the kite was high in the air was carried to Southern Kansas before it landed. Another story was one of the kites broke loose and drifted with a long section of wire dragging and passed directly over the field in which young Harley Wagner was running a cultivator. The wire crossed a Public Service high line and touched the mane on one of the horses killing it instantly. The wire also touched the iron handle on his cultivator and threw the young Wagner from his seat! Local children always looked for a kite to fall because it was common gossip a $5 reward would be paid for the return of the kite and instruments.
By the mid 1920's, efforts began to shift to using airplanes in place of kites. The Groesbeck, Royal Center, and Broken Arrow kite stations discontinued their observations on June 30, 1931.
Learned more about Kite Stations on the NOAA site: https://vlab.noaa.gov/web/nws-heritage/-/flying-kites-for-science
