William A. (Bill) Price was a journalist, aviator, photographer and community organizer from New York City. And he is somewhat of a legend among those who study Route 40.
Price worked as a journalist prior to WWII, covering the United Nations, the crime beat and even sports. During the war, Price was a pilot in the U.S. Navy flying PBY Catalinas and PBM Mariners. Afterwards, he returned to journalism, but the urge to keep flying remained. He convinced the New York Daily News to buy an old biplane and to assign him the duties of aerial photographer. At this time he had also acquired a pair of Fairchild K-20 aerial reconnaissance cameras that used magazines of 25-foot rolls of 4x5 film.
Here's where the legend begins. When George Stewart's book U.S. 40 came out, Price was hit with the idea of duplicating Stewart's journey and rephotographing the highway - except this time from the air. In 1954 Price and his friend Bob Bedell took to the air and began shooting the highway from up above. He repeated the trip a year later with Jane Hogg.
By the journeys' end, Price had made over a thousand exposures of the highway. He planned to publish his work in a book, however, politics intervened and his work was destined to remain tucked away in his closet for years. When called before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating journalists connections with the Communist Party, Price refused to answer any questions citing the First Amendment. He was fined $500 and sentenced to three month in jail but this was eventually overturned. Later, Price was fired from his newspaper job and book publishers kept their distance from Price.
During the 1960s, Price became a bus driver and carpenter and eventually became a community organizer advocating for tenant rights.
For years, rumors of Price's Route 40 photography had been making the rounds. Many people had heard of it but no one could recall who was responsible. All that ended when Air and Space magazine published an article about the flights. Casey Bisson told me about the article and I immediate wrote to Bill. We were fortunate enough to spend two days with Bill in June of 2000. We were able to review all of his aerial photographs and Bill reminisced about those flights.
Price died on April 29, 2009 in New York. Price's extensive collection of Route 40 photographs are with his nephew Broderick Price. It is his wish to have them archived and published.
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