Gardner Propeller Company

Forest Park, Illinois

The following background information on Gardner Propellers was provided by and used with the permission of Mr. Robert C. Gardner:

My name is Robert C. Gardner. My Uncle Bill was William H. Gardner, Jr. and he manufactured Gardner Propellers in Forest Park, IL. My Uncle Bill Gardner was a very interesting man. He attended Dartmouth but never graduated. His interest in airplanes led him to design propellers. He opened a factory in Forest Park through the financing of his father who was a banker. My father was a lumberman and had his lumber company on the same property. I used to go down to the Propeller works and watch them build propellers. It had a wonderful smell of the glue room where they laminated the wood to make the propellers. He had two employees who were German and were expert craftsman in their trade. In WW-II he made club propellers for the air corps. After the war the propeller business started to fall apart due to the variable pitch props made of metal. He could not compete with them and moved his shop to Wisconsin and tried making golf club heads. This failed and he eventually got a job in Peoria, IL as a draftsman. After he retired he moved to Springfield, IL with his wife and became quite active in AA. He did a prison ministry for AA. Eventually his health failed and he passed away from heart failure.
 

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Gardner props are stamped with a number known as a drawing or design number. The table below is arranged in drawing number order. Locate the drawing number in the left column then read across to locate the aircraft and engine combination the prop was designed to be used on. Although this is not a large page, it may be easier to locate your prop by using the search or find tools of your web browser.

The Rose Parrakeet information above was generously provided by Don Gillmore.
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