The First
M
ore than 100 years ago, in
1911, most people in the
world – and even in the U.S.
where it was invented – had never seen
a real airplane. But that year, the Big
Bend area was a witness to aviation
history when the first cross-country
flight came through from San Antonio
and Del Rio to Sanderson. It then
passed through Marathon, stopping at
Alpine and continuing on to Marfa
and Valentine, before going on to
Sierra Blanca and later El Paso on its
way to California.
The ever-present cigar clinched in
his teeth, Cal Rodgers passed through
West Texas sitting on the lower wing
of his Wright EX Flyer less than eight
years after Wilbur and Orville Wright's
first official “heavier than air powered
flight” at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
There have been recent reports in
the last year that the Wrights may not
have been the first in the air, but back
in 1911 there was little doubt that the
Wrights indeed were first.
The Connecticut Legislature passed
a bill in the summer of 2013, pushed
by Governor Dannel P. Malloy, offi-
cially proclaiming that on August 14,
1901 – more than two years before the
Wright brothers' accomplishment –
Gustave Whitehead flew 1.5 miles, 50
feet above the ground, near
Bridgeport, Connecticut, in his plane
“The Condor,” powered by flapping
wings of canvas stretched over wooden
“bat-like” wings.
It would not be until December 17,
1903, before the much shorter 852-
foot, 59-second flight at Kitty Hawk.
But documentation for the Whitehead
feat is lacking and Smithsonian Air
and Space Museum Senior Curator
Tom Crouch was quoted as saying he
believed the Condor “never left the
ground.” The alleged craft seemed to
be an “ornithopter,” a machine that
produces lift and thrust by flapping
wings like a bird. Today, more than a
century later, man still has not success-
fully developed that technology.
14
Cenizo
There were other “first flight”
reports before Kitty Hawk, including
at least one near West Texas, but they
also lacked significant documentation.
Cal Rodgers was the scion of two
preeminent US Naval families. He was
the great-grandson of Commodores
John Rogers and Matthew Calbraith
Perry, who were close associates
throughout their naval careers. The
latter was credited with bringing
Western civilization to Japan in 1850.
Publisher William Randolph Hearst
had offered a $50,000 prize to the first
person to fly coast to coast, stipulating
the flight would have to be accom-
plished in 30 days. Cal was attracted to
the Hearst prize and, with the support
of his wife Mabel, decided to go for it.
Having won the biggest purse in a
Chicago
air
meet,
Rodgers
approached J. Ogden Armour of the
Armour Company, who had become a
Rodgers fan. Armour had developed a
new grape-flavored soft drink called
Vin Fiz and a flying billboard seemed
like an excellent vehicle for a national
advertising campaign.
There was no prohibition against
repairing the airplane or crashing
along the way to qualify for the Hearst
prize. Cal did plenty of both, and very
little of the original Wright Flyer was
part of the machine that finally dipped
its wheels in the Pacific Ocean on
December 10, 1911, more than a
month after Cal's ceremonial official
end at Pasadena, California, and some
three months after he left Sheepshead
Bay, New York.
He had been the first private citizen
to buy a Wright Flyer and decided on
the Hearst prize after winning
$11,285, the top money at the Chicago
Air Meet—which he accomplished
just after learning to fly and getting
Pilot’s License Number 49, after 90
minutes of flight time. He left New
York on September 17 and headed
west for Chicago, one of the few
requirements for the Hearst prize.
With no such thing as aerial navigation
First Quarter 2014
aids – or even road maps – Cal fol-
lowed the Erie Railroad, whose crews
put out white cloth on the correct track
after a switch so he would know which
to follow.
Everywhere Rodgers flew on his
cross-country flight, he drew huge
crowds, even when he just passed over
a town without landing. It calls to
mind the excitement we all felt in the
early space age when man was first
walking on the moon and some of the
flights leading up to it, including Alan
Shepard's first sub-orbital flight.
Today, humans in space engender the
same enthusiasm as routine airplane
flights did a century ago.
After Chicago, Cal and his three- to
six-car train carrying his support team
turned south toward Texas. Aboard
the train were Mabel and Cal's moth-
er, Maria R. Sweitzer. The support
crew included Armour representatives,
members of the news media and
“mechanicians,” including Wright's
chief mechanic Charlie Tailor, who
stayed with the team until he had to
leave from Sanderson to attend to a
family emergency on the West Coast.
One element of the train was a
“hangar car”–a baggage car painted
white and emblazoned with the Vin
Fiz logo–with a supply of spare parts
and tools to keep the flyer going. Also
on board was a Palmer-Singer auto-
mobile for ground transportation at
the many stops along the way.
Along the route, women sold sou-
venir post cards and the first “air mail”
– letters officially carried aboard the
Vin Fiz aircraft. Some of them, in fact,
were so transported, although many
were just ceremonial.
Once in Texas, Cal took a wrong
turn when a passing freight train
obscured the white cloth at
Whitesboro and he sailed blithely west
some 30 miles before correcting the
error. The wrong turn
gave the people of
Blanco an unexpected
treat.
After getting back
on track, he later land-
ed at what today is a
prime residential area
called Ryan Place
south of downtown
Fort Worth. He
overnighted in “Cow
Town” and the next
day turned back east
30 miles to Dallas
where he made an
unscheduled appear-
ance at an air show at Fair Park. On
the way, Cal met an eagle in flight
which flew up to see the strange bird
that was invading his air space.
Apparently satisfied, the two fliers
went their separate ways.
Cal then flew to San Antonio before
turning west toward the country we all
know so well. At Terrell County, Cal
stopped at Dryden to take on oil that
was getting low and then flew the 20
miles west to what would years later be
known as the “Cactus Capital of
Texas.”
Cal had one fairly serious crash
while trying to leave Sanderson and
then was forced down with engine
trouble in Fort Hancock, causing
minor damage to the aircraft in the
landing. In between the two, he sailed
right through
West Texas continued on page 27