CHUCK YEAGER HAD A SPECIAL PLACE IN OROVILLE HISTORY
OROVILLE » On October 14, 1947, a B-29 bomber carrying an experimental orange, bullet-shaped, rocketpropelled aircraft called the Bell X-1 in its bomb bay, flew 25,000 feet above the Mojave Desert. Also on board was Capt. Chuck Yeager (February 13, 1923 — December 7, 2020)
Little did the 24-year- old test pilot with two cracked ribs know as he climbed from the bomber into the cockpit of the X-1, named Glamorous Glennis after his first wife, that he was about to make history by reaching 700 mph, Mach 1.07 in the new plane, breaking the sound barrier for the first time.
In fact, when he landed the plane, he still didn’t know he’d made history, according to Jim Lenhoff, Butte County Historian, who decades later asked the famous pilot “What was it like to break the sound barrier?”
“’ I didn’t know I had at the time. I didn’t know until I landed and they told me. All I remember is that at one point all the noise stopped. I couldn’t hear anything. It was silent. That’s the mo
ment when I broke the sound barrier,’” Lenhoff recalled the pilot telling him.
Yeager’s stellar aviation career is chronicled in the history books and made famous in Tom Wolf’s 1979 book The Right Stuff and in a film by the same name in 1983. Generally well-known to the public with a career
that is practically memorized by World War II, Vietnam War and aviation history buffs.
The retired Air Force Brigadier General and recipient of the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart as well as the Collier
air trophy and the Presidential Medal of Freedom held a special place in Oroville’s history.
It was here in the 1940s that the Yeager did his pilot training at the Oroville Airdrome, now the Oroville Airport located at 225 Chuck Yeager Way. It was also here
that he met his first wife Glennis Dickhouse, a 1943 Oroville High School graduate.
Lenhoff whose mother went to school with Glennis Dickhouse, recalled Yeager met “Glamours Glennis,” who was said to resemble film star Vivien Leigh, while arranging for a U.S.O. dance for him and “the fellows” stationed here.
On February 26, 1945 Yeager and Dickhouse married. She passed away from cancer in 1990. The couple and had four children.
There were several “tall tales” about Yeager including a local one that purported Yeager flew under the original Bidwell Bar Bridge.
“I asked him about that. He admitted to jumping off the bridge into the river just like many of us who lived here dared to do at one time or another but he never flew under it. He did fly under what we called Hansel’s Bridge way up the canyon over the river on Highway 70. He said he didn’t tell anybody at the time because he didn’t want to get court martialed,” said Lenhoff.
Following his retirement from the Air Force, Yeager moved to a community near Grass Valley. An avid hunter of big and exotic game, Yeager would fly from his home to Oroville to do business with RCBS and Hunting
ton’s Sportsman’s Store where he purchased hunting rifles and ammunition and had custom gunsmithing work done on his weapons.
Bob Post, Huntington’s manager until his retirement in 2010, recalled that when Yeager was “a demanding customer. A real nice guy but he expected the people at the store helping him to know what they were talking about.”
“We became friends. I did some turkey hunting at his place near Grass Valley.” Post said. “Sometimes we’d go out to lunch. He really liked the Chinese restau
rant, Tong Fong Low,” said Post. “He didn’t much care for attention from the public though. He was happy to meet people and would talk to anyone but he didn’t much like people just walking up to him.”
In addition to visiting Oroville for his hunting needs, Yeager also came to Oroville in June 2018 at the invitation of Lenhoff for a public speaking engagement at MugShots Coffee House.
Local realtor Bud Tracy said that he and his wife, Linda’s met Yeager at that presentation.
“Linda and I have seen a lot of movies, and a couple
were about the fastest men alive who were all a little crazy and became test pilots, “Tracy said. “Several as you know died out there risking lives to see how fast we could go! We talked about those movies (with Yeager), about the feeling of breaking the sound barrier, and so on. It was really exciting! I’ve met several stars and famous people, but I had more fun with that chat than most.”
In 1973 Yeager was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame and in 2009 he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.