Reeve came to Alaska by steamship with $2 in his pocket. When he passed away, he was one of the state's preeminent aviation entrepreneurs as founder and chairman of the former Reeve Aleutian Airways.

"He never retired, never turned loose of the reigns. It just wasn't in him," said Reeve's son, Richard.

Robert Reeve and his twin brother, Richard, were born in 1902 in Waunakee, Wis., just prior to the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk flight. Both of the twins became enthralled with flying.

According to the book "Flying Beats Work: The Story of Reeve Aleutian Airways," by Stan Cohen, Robert Reeve saw his first plane in Indiana in 1917. Two years later, he paid $5 for five minutes for his first plane ride.

Aviation pioneer Robert Reeve will be recognized for his contributions to aviation when he is inducted into the Alaska Aviation Hall of Fame on Feb. 25. Reeve passed away in 1980. PHOTO/Courtesy of the Reeve family

Reeve eventually wound up in Texas, working for two barnstormers, according to Cohen. Barnstormers toured in rural areas giving passengers short flights and performing aerial stunts.

By 1928, Reeve had a commercial pilot's license and had become one of the nation's first certified airplane mechanics.

He took a job flying weekly airmail runs in South America in 1928. There, he set a speed record on a flight between Santiago and Lima, covering 1,900 miles in 20 hours. On that night flight, Reeve only used a compass and never exceeded an altitude of 100 feet.

While in South America, Reeve continually heard stories about Alaska. Reeve thought Alaska would offer an opportunity for him to be his own boss, Cohen writes.

In January 1932, Reeve stowed away in the chain locker of a steamship, landing in Alaska with only $2. When he arrived in Valdez that spring, he had whittled his pocket money to 20 cents.

In Valdez, Reeve met aviator Owen Meals, who had just crashed a single-engine Eaglerock biplane that needed fixing. Reeve did the repairs and then leased the plane, cleared a cow pasture to use as an airstrip and started a charter business.

That was the beginning of what was to become Reeve Aleutian Airways.

In the winter of 1932 Reeve bought his first plane, a Fairchild 51, and began flying miners to their prospects. By 1936, he had bought his second plane, a Fairchild 71. That was also the year he married Janice Morisette.

"Mom was in San Francisco, and Dad was the subject of the press in the 1930s because of the things he was doing," their son, Richard, said. "She wrote him a letter asking if Alaska was all it was cracked up to be. He wrote back and said, 'Hell yes, come on up.' Well much to his surprise, she showed up a couple months later."

Reeve nicknamed his new bride Tilly because, he said, she reminded him of the comic strip character Tilly the Toiler. Their son, Richard, was born the next year. He was the first of the couple's five children.

In the years flying from his Valdez base, Reeve had moved more than 1 million pounds of freight and garnered an unprecedented 2,000 glacier landings - earning him the nickname "The Glacier Pilot."

"Back in the old days, flying was more an adventure," Richard Reeve said. "We've learned a lot since then. He had a knack for doing things right, or at least not doing things dumb."

The Washburn Expedition of 1937 was among his last glacier landings, according to Cohen. Brad Washburn, then a member of the New England Museum of Natural History, wanted to climb Mount Lucania in Canada. Reeve was to land on a glacier at an altitude of 8,750 feet, more than 1,800 feet higher than had ever been accomplished with passengers and freight before, according to Cohen's book.

He made it, but the trip wasn't without its white-knuckle moments. An unusually warm winter, the plane sunk belly-deep in the slush when it landed. The explorers had to wait nearly a week for the temperatures to cool before digging the plane out so Reeve could take off.

"Ahead of me I could see the big crevasses - if I hit one of them I was a goner," Reeve is quoted in Cohen's book as saying. "I happened to glance left and spotted a smooth icefall with about a 500-foot drop-off. I made a sharp turn and dove right over the wall ... We sailed into the air, about 10 feet from the bottom."

The day after that trip, Reeve's engine quit. Figuring his luck had run out with that plane, he never flew it again.

Reeve had been lucky. But things soon changed.

In 1938, Robert's twin brother died in plane crash. The next spring, a windstorm flipped Reeve's plane. When he had nearly completed repairs, a hangar fire destroyed the aircraft. He was officially out of business.

He bought another Fairchild 71 and began repairs when the Civil Aeronautics Authority instituted rules for the areas in which pilots could fly. Reeve was limited to a small territory around Copper River, Cohen wrote.

Held to such a limited area, Reeve decided he couldn't support his family. In 1941, they moved to Fairbanks, then to Anchorage the next year. Reeve had signed a contract with the Alaska Communication System to fly personnel and materials across Alaska, the Aleutians and Western Canada. He was the only Bush pilot under an exclusive contract with the military and the only flyer authorized to fly in a combat zone.

At the end of World War II, Reeve went back to Bush piloting, with the goal of starting an airline to serve the Aleutians. In 1946, he bought his first DC-3 from the Air Force and converted it himself to a 21-passenger commercial craft and began serving the Aleutians.

In March 1947, Reeve Aleutian Airways incorporated, and the next year, it opened its first regular office and hired the first staff.

After all his near misses, safety became a major concern for Reeve, according to Cohen. He developed a checklist for his pilots to follow. In 1948, Reeve missed an item on his checklist, and promptly fired himself as a company pilot. He let his license expire and never renewed it.

"It was an indicator to him that he was not paying full attention to flying so he got himself out of the loop," Richard Reeve said. "He had some pretty strong survival instincts."

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Reeve Airways grew. The airline acquired leases to several former military airfields along the chain and began upgrading its aircraft, purchasing DC-4s and DC-6s.

The Cold War brought increased activity to the Aleutians and to Reeve Airways. The Air Force began building its Distant Early Warning Systems along the chain, so the airline was used to transport construction workers and supplies to the sites.

Fire struck again in 1964, however, destroying the administrative offices in downtown Anchorage. Ten years later, a hangar fire destroyed two aircraft.

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Aviation pioneer Robert Reeve will be recognized for his contributions to aviation when he is inducted into the Alaska Aviation Hall of Fame on Feb. 25. Reeve passed away in 1980. PHOTO/Courtesy of the Reeve family

But the airline couldn't withstand the effects of increased competition, deregulation and the continued difficulties of flying to the Aleutians. Reeve Aleutian Airways stopped flying in 2001, after nearly 70 years.

"It was personally quite painful," Richard Reeve said. "I was in charge of a failing business. We became obsolete and the rest of the world outgrew us. We were family owned, and the family's intent was not to change anything. We didn't want to merge or sell part of the company. We'd always done it ourselves. (Closing) was the only thing left to do."

Richard Reeve, now 67, said his father would consider himself honored to be inducted into the Alaska Aviation Hall of Fame. The event, sponsored by the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum, is scheduled for Feb. 25 at the Fourth Avenue Theatre. For information, call Linda Bustamante at (907) 243-2288.