Wyoming’s Big Horn County has a unique problem on its hands—16 vintage aircraft in various states of disassembly, and no way to properly store or make use of them. So county officials turned to the internet and are now in the process of auctioning the airplanes to interested members of the public, some for as little as $25.
On PublicSurplus.com, potential buyers can browse and place bids on the aircraft, most of which date to World War II or the Cold War. Among the lots are Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcars, Lockheed P-2 Neptunes, Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighters, Martin 4-0-4s, and a Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Most are in poor condition, having been stripped for parts over the years, and in some cases only the fuselage remains.
“They’re aircraft in various stages of undress,” Paul Thur, manager of Big Horn County Airport, told Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily. “But they’re county assets, and the county is selling them.”
The vintage aircraft ended up in the county’s possession after the land where they sit became the focus of a four-year-long legal dispute. The owner of the airplanes, who was leasing the land from the county airport, stopped paying rent, and in 2021 the county filed a $543,600 storage lien against the property. The tenant sued, but earlier this year the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled in favor of the county, allowing commissioners to put some of the aircraft and related equipment up for auction.
“We’re just cleaning up the property,” Thur said. “We would like to recover some legal fees and unpaid lease amounts, but at the end of the day, times are tough with the county, and anything helps.”
Bidding, Buying, and Hauling Away
Most of the aircraft up for auction have a starting price between $25 and $150.
The most expensive item, and presumably the best preserved, is one of the Stratofreighters, priced at $500. Pictures on the auction website show it has its wings, cockpit, and landing gear intact.
It is not clear how or why the original owner acquired the aircraft, or why they were brought to the rural stretch of northern Wyoming.
Most of the aircraft, including the Flying Boxcar, P-2 Neptune, and Stratofreighter, were manufactured in the late 1940s and ’50s during the Cold War-era arms race. They were gradually retired from use in the following decades.
The Martin 4-0-4 was built for civilian air transport in the early 1950s. It was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company of California, which was later merged into Lockheed Martin.
The C-130 Hercules is still in production.
Thur told Cowboy State Daily that none of the aircraft are airworthy and probably won’t ever be, considering how much it would cost to repair them and fit them with new parts and engines.
“We’ve heard from a few museums that are interested in one or two of the more intact planes, but I don’t think any of them could be airworthy again without millions of dollars of restoration,” he said. “No aviation buffs are going to want to get these up and running again.”
Still, potential buyers may be interested in scrapping the aircraft and selling off the parts and metal, especially considering the relatively high price of recycled aluminum, Thur noted. He also sees an opening for collectors, hobbyists, and airplane fans who want a piece of aviation history, no matter what form that takes.
“Somebody could cut the cockpit and the flight deck off of the front of one of the aircraft and put it in their barn,” he said. “Someone else might want the seats and the gauges out of one of the cockpits. There’s a lot of nostalgia in these cool old planes.”
Also up for sale is ground equipment like a tanker trailer, a cargo loader, and Caterpillar D6 bulldozer dating from around 1950. For some of those items, the original manufacturer is not known and cannot be established.
The auction is expected to close on Wednesday, October 3 at noon MDT. Winning bidders will have to remove their items from the property within 90 days and are expected to provide their own tools, labor, and equipment for the job.
Not All Gone
According to Cowboy State Daily, residents of nearby Greybull, Wyoming, are concerned about the vintage aircraft disappearing from the lot near the county airport, since they’ve become something of a landmark and an informal tourism draw.
But county officials note that only some of the airplanes on the property are being auctioned. The others, which are owned by aircraft repair and fabrication company B&G Industries, will remain in place.
“I would say B&G owns a little over half of the aircraft at the boneyard,” Thur said. “Even if everything disappeared from our auction, you’ll still see big old planes sitting out there.”
The best preserved aircraft to move through the county lot have already been relocated to the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting in Greybull. This group included a nearly pristine KC-97.
The museum will likely not acquire any more of the aircraft from the auction because of their poor condition.
