Clark County History: Ann Bohrer, pilot and parachutistSubscriber Exclusive

By Martin Middlewood, Columbian freelance contributor

Published: September 2, 2023, 6:02am

Ann Bohrer was among the first women in the Pacific Northwest to fly and parachute. As the air hostess at the Salem Municipal Airport, she was likely the first flight attendant in the Pacific Northwest. Bohrer and her brother wrote and published a humorous aviation magazine and several books. She belonged to the O-X5 Aviation Pioneer's Oregon Wing and the Portland Aviation Breakfast Club. (Contributed by Oregon Historical Society)

In a 1991 interview, Ann Bohrer told a Tualatin Times reporter she was born the same year the Wright Brothers first flew. She fibbed. She was born in January 1904, 37 days later. Still, her birth was close enough to the brothers’ first flight that she could reasonably claim her life paralleled the growth of aviation.

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