The Boeing Aircraft Company Is Founded

In 1916, the Seattle lumber businessman William E. Boeing founded the aircraft company that would bear his name. Boeing had developed an enthusiasm for flying and, working with the naval engineer Conrad Westervelt, helped design and build an early floatplane. Convinced he could build better aircraft than those then available, he established his own firm to do so.

The young company, soon known as the Boeing Airplane Company, found early footing supplying training seaplanes to the United States Navy as America's involvement in the First World War grew. These early military contracts gave the enterprise the work it needed to survive the lean years that followed the war's end.

From these modest beginnings Boeing grew into one of the dominant forces in world aviation, producing landmark military and commercial aircraft across the twentieth century, from the B-17 and B-29 bombers to the 707 and 747 jetliners. Its 1916 founding marks the start of one of the most consequential industrial stories in the history of flight.