The Curtiss Jenny became America’s most renowned World War I coaching aeroplane. Often used for first flight coaching, some Jennies were equipped with machine guns and bomb racks for complicated coaching. The JN series started by mixing the best features of the Curtiss “J” and “N” models. A 1915 version, the JN-3, supported Pershing’s Punishing Expedition into Mexico in 1916, but the plane proved barely suitable for field operations. Curtiss improved the JN-3 and redesignated in the JN-4. With America’s entry into WWI on Apr six, 1917, the Signal Corps ordered large amounts of JN-4s, and by the point production was terminated after the truce, more than six thousand had been delivered, the bulk of them JN-4Ds. After WWI, the division sold loads of surplus JN-4s to civilians.

The plane soon became the anchor of the “barnstormers” of the 1920s, and many Jennies continued flying into the 1930s. The JN-4D on show was obtained from Robert Pfeil of Taylor, Texas, in 1956.