Betty Frasier christened this P-47 Thunderbolt in 1943 as Mayor William Dress and other notables, including businessman Kenneth C. Kent (right) looked on. Republic Aviation broke ground for the facility south of the airport in April 1942. The first plane was completed five months later. Over the next three years, an average of fourteen planes were completed a day, and about six-five hundred in toto. The plants economic impact was enormous: it employed five thousand, and the parts it required led to the expansion of a number of other facilities in the city. A greatly enlarged airport also emerged from the war. The facility was appropriately named after Mayor Dress who guided the city--and the airport expansion--through the harrowing days of the Depression, the early years of the war, and the immediate postwar years. (An Evansville Album, p. 97) Photograph attributed to University of Evansville.