Auto industry / Science & invention / Business & brands
William Bushnell Stout
1880–1956 · engineer, inventor, aircraft and car designer
Dearborn engineer whose all-metal airplanes led to the Ford Trimotor, who ran one of America's first scheduled airlines from Ford Airport and designed the Stout Scarab.
- Born
Quincy, Illinois- Died
Phoenix, Arizona
aged 76- Also known as
- Bill Stout
- Detroit years
- 1916–1940s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Stout was born in Quincy, Illinois, in 1880 and worked as an engineer and as automobile and aviation editor of the Chicago Tribune before the car industry drew him to Michigan: in 1916 he became the first chief engineer of Packard's new aviation division in Detroit. In 1919 he opened the Stout Engineering Company in Dearborn and began building all-metal airplanes inspired by the German designer Hugo Junkers. Henry Ford and his son Edsel invested, and in 1924 Ford bought the Stout Metal Airplane Company, whose factory stood at the new Ford Airport in Dearborn. Stout's three-engine 3-AT, redesigned by Ford engineers, became the famous Ford Trimotor. His Stout Air Services began one of the first regularly scheduled airline services in the United States in 1926, between Dearborn and Grand Rapids. He then returned to cars, building the streamlined, rear-engined Stout Scarab in 1932, often called the first minivan.
Highlights
- His all-metal 3-AT design became the basis of the Ford Trimotor
- Stout Air Services: early scheduled U.S. airline, Dearborn–Grand Rapids, 1926
- First chief engineer of Packard's aviation division, 1916
- Built the Stout Scarab (1932), an early minivan
- Founded Aerial Age, an early U.S. aviation magazine, in 1912
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Worked here · 1924–1930s
Ford Airport (Dearborn)
Demolished · 1924–1947
Henry Ford's airport, opened in 1924 around the Stout Metal Airplane Company factory; the base of Stout Air Services and of Ford Trimotor production. It closed in 1947 and is now part of Ford's Dearborn Proving Ground; the last hangar was demolished in 2018, and only the Dearborn Inn, built across the road in 1931, remains.