From Macon crop duster to global airline

Editor’s note: The following story is part of a feature called Home Grown in which we take a look at the people and products that have made a name for themselves well beyond our Middle Georgia borders.

If the boll weevil had not infested all U.S. cotton-growing areas by the 1920s, there might have never been a Delta Air Lines.

The company grew out of Huff Daland Dusters Inc., a cotton dusting company originally based in Macon in 1924. It was the nation’s first crop-dusting company.

By 1925, the company moved its base operation to the Louisiana Delta to be closer to more of the country’s cotton fields. However, a few of its planes remained at Macon’s former Camp Wheeler airfield, an Army training camp.

Three years later the name was changed to Delta Air Service and eventually to Delta Air Lines, according to a story in The Macon Telegraph dated June 9, 1961.

Delta started domestic passenger service in 1929.

Now the company is one of the world’s largest airlines, flying about 160 million people annually.

This story was originally published November 17, 2016 at 11:53 AM with the headline "From Macon crop duster to global airline."