Flying Laundry Wagon

One day last month in Hilo (pop. 23,000), on the island of Hawaii, a 35-year-old ex-G.I. named Woodrow Dodds, from Tiffin, Ohio, found himself out of a job. He had been one of no workers discharged when the island's only modern laundry closed. As dirty laundry piled up in Hilo's houses, hotels and hospitals, Dodds got an idea.

He hustled over to the Hawaiian Airlines, Ltd. office, learned that it cost 2-c- a pound to fly freight to Wailuku on the island of Maui, 126 miles away. Dodds hopped over to Wailuku and made a deal with Manager Joe Gehring of the Snow White Laundry to handle all the laundry Dodds could fly over. Then Dodds bought a used truck, rounded up all of Hilo's dirty laundry and had it flown to Wailuku.

Two days later the clean laundry was back in Hilo. Soon Dodds had more business than he could handle. By last week the Dodds Laundry and Dry Cleaning Service was handling some 3,000 Ibs. of laundry and 50 suits a day at slightly higher prices than those of Hilo's closed laundry. A shirt cost 27-c-, against the old price of 23-c-, but sheets, at 10-c-, were the same. Dodds is currently grossing between $5,000 and $6,000 a month, netting $1,500.

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