Back in 2014, the Missouri Aviation Historical Society dedicated one of the monthly meetings to the Butch O'Hare story. I have to admit that I only realzied that Butch O'Hare was from St. Louis a few years ago. We were lucky enough to have a number of his family members in attendance that evening and they brought with them some very interesting family memorabilia. We were also lucky enough to have a local public TV producer, Jim Kirchherr, who put together a wonderful story about Butch O'Hare in attendance that evening. Jim brought a DVD of the program so we were able to watch it on the large projection screen. It's available on YouTube and well worth the time to watch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEKJgPewG6YSadly, there are no memorials to Butch O'Hare in St. Louis. Apparently his mother did not want any built because she thought it would take away from all the other young men who were lost in the war. Based on what I learned about Butch O'Hare that evening, he may have felt the same way. So there's not much of his story on display here in his home town, in fact I don't think there is anything on display any more. There is a small airport up in Chicago that is named in his honor.
Most of us who are interested in Missouri aviation history feel like we should do more to tell his story so perhaps the newly formed Missouri Aviation Hall of Fame will take up that subject soon.
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