"It was breathtaking, and almost celestial."
he Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation and Museum, situated next to historic Hollywood Burbank Airport, is the final resting place of more than a dozen early aviation pioneers. It’s also
Dreams Take Flight and Touch Down in Burbank:
The Portal of the Folded Wings Honors Burbank’s Historic Ties to Early Aviation
Burbank
“It was breathtaking, and almost celestial. Looking up at the dome with the stars … thinking about the mystery of these great people,” recalls Julia Lauria-Blum.
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Koontz immediately went to visit the Portal, which was in the midst of a renovation. “The first time she saw it, it was shrouded in 80-foot-tall scaffolding. She got access to it wearing her hard hat,” Lauria-Blum says. “And under the grime that was on the wall she sees this beautiful white marble and this beautiful sky-blue-ceilinged dome painted with gold stars.”
The first time Lauria-Blum visited the Portal of the Folded Wings at Valhalla Memorial Park in Burbank, the aviation historian was overwhelmed, “Their names are not really very well known, but the planes are flying overhead from Burbank Airport, and you’re thinking, ‘These are the people that allowed us to be able to travel like that.’”
However, the Portal of the Folded Wings wasn’t supposed to be a shrine to aviation history. The towering 78-foot Spanish Revival-style rotunda was built in 1924 as the entryway to the new Valhalla Memorial Park, a cutting-edge cemetery in what was then the rural San Fernando Valley. Designed by architect Kenneth MacDonald Jr., the breathtaking structure features sculptures by artist Federico A. Giorgi and cost $140,000 (about $2 million today) to build.
The first pioneer buried there was Walter R. Brookins, a record-setting aviator and the first civilian pilot taught to fly by the Wright Brothers. In the decades that followed, ashes of other aviation pioneers would also be interred at the Portal of the Folded Wings, including those of W. Bertrum Kinner, designer of the Kinner Airster, Matilde J. Moisant, the second woman in the country to get a pilot’s license, Charles E. Taylor, machinist for the Wright brothers, and Evelyn “Bobbi” Trout, the first woman to receive the Howard Hughes Memorial Award for her contributions to aviation. Gillette and sculptor Giorgi are buried nearby.
By the mid-1990s, the Portal had fallen into disrepair and was mostly forgotten. That’s when brilliant Southern California aviation anthropologist Giacinta Bradley Koontz stepped in. “She was an encyclopedia of aviation,” her good friend Lauria-Blum remembers.
In 1995, Koontz went to Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans in search of the grave of aviation daredevil John Moisant, who had died in a plane crash there in 1910. Once at the cemetery, she discovered he had been reinterred at the Portal of the Folded Wings in the 1960s. “So Gia, who was originally from California, had traveled 2,500 miles … to discover that he was buried 10 miles away from her home!” Lauria-Blum says.
Under the plywood-covered floors, Koontz discovered oxidized bronze plaques honoring John Moisant, his sister Matilde and many more.
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Realizing the importance of the Portal to aviation history in America, Koontz had the Portal rededicated on May 27, 1996. She opened a small museum at the site, led tours and hosted events while constantly raising money for upkeep. In 1998, she succeeded in getting the Portal of the Folded Wings listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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Words by HADLEY MEARES
Photography by ANNIE GREGORY
an important reminder of Burbank’s long history as a center of aviation beginning in the 1920s. With its flat open fields and blue skies, Burbank drew daredevil dreamers, industrialists and aviators like Amelia Earhart, who frequently flew out of what was first known as Union Airport.
Giacinta Bradley Koontz passed away in 2020. Her colleagues raised money to ensure that a plaque is placed with her ashes at the Portal. “We are a group of friends who want to remember her for what she did, and her legacy, because she felt she left none. And we wanted to correct that,” Lauria-Blum says. “This is a story of love and passion. She was very, very passionate about the subject of aviation.”
Today, thanks to historians like Koontz and Gillette, locals and visitors alike can visit the Portal of the Folded Wings to learn about aviation history. It’s a daring, dynamic story, perfectly in keeping with the pioneering spirit of the city of Burbank, still a land of cloudless blue skies, perfect for flying. To explore more of what neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area offer, visit doordash.com.
final resting place of more than a dozen early aviation pioneers. It’s also an important reminder of Burbank’s long history as a center of aviation beginning in the 1920s. With its flat open fields and blue skies, Burbank drew daredevil dreamers, industrialists and aviators like Amelia Earhart, who frequently flew out of what was first known as Union Airport.
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The entryway was formally dedicated in 1925. Over the years it became a focal point of the cemetery, the site of concerts and events. After Union Airport opened in 1930, the constant noise caused by planes flying overhead drove the cemetery brass to move the entrance across the park, and vehicle traffic under the rotunda came to an end.
But cemetery employee James Gillette had other plans. The aviation enthusiast persuaded cemetery owners to repurpose the grand rotunda as a shrine to early aviation history and make it a place where pioneering aviators, mechanics and balloonists could be buried with honor.
Gillette’s work paid off, and on Dec. 17, 1953, the rotunda was officially named the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker spoke at the ceremony: “Let us dedicate ourselves to the hope that the next half century of flight will see as much progress as the last,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
The entryway was formally dedicated in 1925. Over the years it became a focal point of the cemetery, the site of concerts and events. After Union Airport opened in 1930, the constant noise caused by planes flying overhead drove the cemetery brass to move the entrance across the park, and vehicle traffic under the rotunda came to an end.
But cemetery employee James Gillette had other plans. The aviation enthusiast persuaded cemetery owners to repurpose the grand rotunda as a shrine to early aviation history and make it a place where pioneering aviators, mechanics and balloonists could be buried with honor.
Gillette’s work paid off, and on Dec. 17, 1953, the rotunda was officially named the Portal of the Folded Wings Shrine to Aviation. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Ira C. Eaker spoke at the ceremony: “Let us dedicate ourselves to the hope that the next half century of flight will see as much progress as the last,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
COURTESY OF FRIENDS OF GIA