page_title: William T. Piper
section_title: Death and legacy
hierarchical_section_title: William T. Piper / Death and legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Piper family mausoleum located atop Highland Cemetery in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, United States.
context_page_description: William Thomas Piper Sr. was an American airplane manufacturer, aviation businessman, oil industry businessman, and engineer. He was the founding president of the Piper Aircraft Corporation and led the company from 1929 until his death in 1970. He graduated from Harvard University in 1903 and later became known as "the Henry Ford of aviation".
  Prior to Piper's successful business career he was an officer in the United States Army serving in the Spanish–American War. He was then in the United States Army Corps of Engineers during World War I. In total Piper served 18 years in the Army. When he returned from World War I he was primarily an investor and businessman in the oil industry until 1929 when he became an investor in the Taylor Brothers Aircraft Corporation. He went on to purchase the soon-renamed Taylor Aircraft Corporation and head it until reorganizing the company into Piper Aircraft in 1937, eventually seeing tremendous success and becoming a well-known aviation figure of the 20th century. Piper Aircraft sold over 80,000 units when he oversaw the company, cementing Piper as a global aerospace manufacturing power.
context_section_description: Piper died in his home in Lock Haven due to natural causes on January 15, 1970. Just prior to his death, in 1968, Piper's son, William Piper, Jr., took over the company and was appointed president. In 1970, Piper Jr. was also named chairman by the board, and in 1973, Piper Aircraft was sold, moving from Pennsylvania to where it is located today, Vero Beach, Florida.
  In 1980, William Piper was posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. In 1993, Piper was inducted into the International Air & Space Hall of Fame at the San Diego Air & Space Museum. The William T. Piper Memorial Airport in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania is named in his honor.
  Ever since 2009 the William T. Piper Scholarship has been awarded nationally to high school students looking to pursue a career within aviation.
caption: The Piper family mausoleum located atop Highland Cemetery in Lock Haven, where William is interred
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