Curtiss – After first flying on Long Island in 1909 in the Golden Flyer, Glenn Curtiss moved his companies R & D division to a new factory in Garden City in 1917. Curtiss chose the site for their new experimental plant because of its accessibility to the Army’s Hazelhurst Field and New York City. This was the first aircraft factory in the world to concentrate on new aircraft designs, rather than production. Between 1918 and 1931, Curtiss developed some of the best-known aircraft of aviation’s ‘Golden Age’ on Long Island.