Walter Soplata is a name well-known amongst aviation enthusiasts. Soplata grew up in Ohio raised by Czech immigrants. Throughout his childhood, Soplata had become fascinated by airplanes. As his fascination grew well into the Great Depression, he would put together any money he could find to buy and build balsa model aircraft. Soplata was disqualified from joining the military during World War II due to a stutter, but he found a way to work with something he loved, and took a job at a Cleveland scrapyard. In this scrapyard, Soplata would scrap thousands of warplane engines as they became declared surplus. Seeing an end coming to the history of these beautiful aircraft, he decided to start a collection to save their stories for future generations. He began buying planes before they went to be totally scrapped.

In 1947 Soplata secured a plot of land east of Cleveland to start his airplane collection. The first plane he would add to his soon-to-be large collection was a late-1920s American Eagle biplane. Over several years, he would add other rare planes to his collection, including a Vultee BT015 trainer, a B-25 bomber, Vought/Goodyear FG-1D Corsair and an F2G Corsair, which had taken first place in the 1947 Cleveland National Air Races. He was able to purchase most of the aircraft in his collection for a few hundred dollars – sometimes a little more, and sometimes a little less. The B-25 in particular was sourced from Lunken Airport in Cincinnati. Walter had heard that they would soon be scrapping the plane, and he could not have that happen. His love for historic airplanes was far too strong to let it go, so he made an offer to the owner who eventually agreed to sell it to him for $500. Before Soplata came to save the bomber, it had been used by a man from Louisiana for transporting exotic animals from city to city. He was forced to make a belly landing in the airport when the landing gear failed to operate, causing damage to the underside of the plane. This is what had initially led to the plan of scrapping it.

While many people refer to this as an airplane “graveyard,” Walter always would have rather it been referred to as an airplane “sanctuary.” He saved the history to share with those interested, and though these planes were down and out, their stories lived on through them being saved. They would have gone to a graveyard of scrap if it hadn’t been for Soplata. Calling his collection a “graveyard” does not give the recognition his perseverance in creating this collection deserves. Soplata stopped adding planes to his collection sometime in the 1970s.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Soplata toured visitors around his collection every Sunday – often sharing stories with 20-30 visitors every week. Through these airplanes, history lives on. Soplata passed in 2010, but his memory still lives on throughout the aviation community, and much of the world interested in history. He did great things that will never be forgotten.