William K. Moran was the son of Michael and Margaret (King) Moran of 53 Richman St. He was born and raised in Clinton, graduated from Clinton High School, and enlisted in the Aviation Corps in the fall of 1917. After training at Cornell University and flying fields in the mid-West, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant and was assigned to instruction service in Pensacola, Fla. Despite his insistence on going overseas to enter the Great War, Moran was retained as a flight instructor. Part of the work he did in the early 1920s was to chart and map the southern and southwestern parts of the United Sates, developing future routes for air mail and, ultimately, passenger planes.