AIR HEADS Part Six

I remain impressed with the cupidity of the contestants in this amazing race. (It means they were avaricious.) Certainly the pilots, Bob Fowler and Cal Rodgers, were risking their lives day after day and deserved some reward for that risk. And now that the prize which had inspired it all had been withdrawn, they had to work even harder for it.  At the Dallas Fair Grounds (above), where Cal Rodgers put in two days of flights before 75,000,  he sold photo’s and autographs -  just as Bob Fowler did at his stops - just as musicians do at concerts today. 

There were always the “Vin Fiz” coupons Cal was still dropping over unsuspecting soda drinkers in cities where he did not land. The Waco Texas Young Men’s Business League offered Cal an impressive fee, so on Friday, 20 October,  he took a long detour south and did several loops around Waco's single sky scrapper (above).

Even Mable Rodgers (above) had gotten into the act. Dear, sweet, shy, retiring and innocent Mable Rodgers had tried to convince the United States Post Office that the historical nature of the race warranted creating her a special “Post Mistress”, so that she could stamp “Postmarked Vin Fiz Special” on cards and letters bought from her while en route -  for a small fee, of course.

But when that money making idea failed to inspire Congress to act,  Mable sent Cal’s brother Robert (above, center) out ahead to Kansas City to order unofficial over sized “Vin Fiz Flyer” and “Rodgers Aerial Post” stamps, to be sold at a quarter apiece once the Flyer had crossed into Texas.

Buyers would still have to affix official U.S. postage stamps to have anything delivered, and the stamps had been ordered with no glue backing, so they didn't actually stick to anything. But Mable was  trying to squeeze every penny out of the insanity she was caught up in.  

It’s difficult to know if enough stamps were actually sold to cover the cost of printing them, but we do know that only thirteen “Vin Fiz” stamps still survive, eight on postcards, one on a letter and four “off cover”, meaning individually.  One of the “off cover” stamps sold in 2006, when the world was still drunk, for $70,000.  That amount could have financed the entire flight back in 1911.  I guess Mable had the right idea, just bad timing. And I’m certain that Cal's mother, Maria (ne Rodgers) Sweitzer, was certain to reminded poor Mable of her financial gaff, at every opportunity.

Tension was building in the hothouse of the 66 foot long by 8 ½ foot wide pressure cooker of the “Vin Fiz Special” Pullman sleeping car, with wife and mother-in-law cooped up for endless days together on the endless stretches of track between the way stations of civilization across the American West. 

The air must have been thick with slights (real and imagined), invective (real and imagined), criticism and denunciations (real and perceived).  The two ladies endured each other for Cal’s sake from New York to Chicago. Then mother Maria found an excuse to leave the train for a few days.  But at Kansas City she had rejoined the caravan, only to disembark yet again at San Antonio.  The lady was up to something.

Perhaps the expense of printing up stamps that would not stick came up once too often in the conversations. But whatever the cause, when momma Maria rejoined the train outside of El Paso, Texas she brought reinforcements – 22 year old Lucy Belvedere, a reputed heiress, and,  at least in Maria’s mind, an improvement over Mable.   I'll bet that dear Lucy could swim, too. Cal wouldn't have to save her.  

It would appear that Cal was somewhat distracted by the drama building in the Pullman car.  In what can only be seen as an sign of that increasing drama , as he approached El Paso, Cal had a near-miss in mid-air with an eagle, or maybe it was a vulture.  In any case, on Tuesday, 24 October, at Spofford, Texas, Cal’s attention slipped enough to toss him into a ground loop that broke the wing and “splintered” both props  

Through yet another Herculean effort Chief mechanic Charlie Taylor and his first assistant, Charlie “Wiggie” Wiggin, were able to get Cal back into the air the next morning.

Then, just before noon on Friday, 27 October,  the object of this maternal verses matrimonial completion, landed at the corner of Duval and 45th street in Austin, Texas . Three thousand came out to cheer the hero (above).  And Mable was quoted by a local reporter as saying, “Sometimes I suspect that Calbraith thinks showing affection to a woman would be unfaithful to his machine.” 

Yes, that was Mable’s concern right then, trapped aboard the sleeping car with her mother-in-law and a woman her mother-in-law clearly saw as her replacement.  I wonder if Mable noted ironically to herself that one of the things still holding Cal in the air was her corset, strapped into an upper wing as a repair.

In Deming, New Mexico (above), on Halloween, Cal’s ignition system went on the fritz. Can it be any wonder? Still he persevered.  He refueled at Wilcox, Arizona on Wednesday 1 November, and took the short hop from there to Tucson, where he paused just long enough to travel the six blocks by car to the ball park where Bob Fowler’s "Cole Flyer" had landed. They shook hands, but Cal was so rushed - perhaps by the drama being played out aboard the Vin Fiz sleeping car -  the photographers had no time to snap a picture. 

Being in the air, seated beside that pounding engine hour after hour, must have been the only peace the boy had.  But help was at hand. This time Mable would finally showed a nerve equal to her Cal’s.  This time she wasn’t waiting to be rescued.

Returning to the Vin Fiz sleeping car after the refueling stop at Wilcox, Arizona, Mother Maria (above) and Lucy Belvedere discovered that Lucy's entire trousseau was missing from her compartment. Where upon shy little Mable informed the ladies that Lucy's frillies and lace were safely aboard the baggage car of the east bound train they had just passed,  back in Wilcox.  The trousseau had been placed there by "Wiggie" on shy little Mables' instructions.  

It was a display of verve and determination that mother Maria had not expected out of her husband's shy little wife.  

So, while Cal struggled for fame and fortune above the unforgiving deserts of Arizona, Lucy Belvedere gathered her few remaining belongings and retreated from the “Vin Fiz Special” via the next east bound passenger train, chasing her corsets and 'frillies' back into Texas, and out of the pages of aviation history.  It seems that at some point in this desert crossing, little Mable had taught herself how to swim.

                                                   - 30 - 

AIR HEADS Chapter Five

 

I had to do some work to locate the starting point for Bob Fowler’s second attempt at a transcontinental flight. For one thing it has been buried under concrete and asphalt for a century. For another, some histories have mis-labeled it as “Wiltshire Field”, but that seems to have been a "spell check mis-correction" of the name "Henry Gaylord Wilshire".  If you are familiar with Los Angeles at all you recognize that name.  

In 1895 Gaylord bought 35 acres around what would later be renamed MacArthur Park.  Gaylord then humbly allowed the city of Los Angeles to build a road right through the center of his property (above), on the twin conditions that they not lay down any street car tracks, and that they name the street after him. Then he promptly packed up and moved back to New York. He left his name no where else in Los Angles.

Wilshire Boulevard’s beginnings were very humble indeed, bisecting mostly beet fields. In 1910 that made the intersection of Wilshire (above, center) and Fairfax Avenue (above, heading toward mountains) an ideal location for an airfield...

... close to the budding metropolis of Los Angeles (above) - 320,000 citizens already - but open enough to allow pilots to crash regularly without killing the neighbors, because there weren’t any....

...except for a few oil derricks and some deceased Dire Wolves stuck in the tar of the nearby La Brea Tar Pits (above and below).  And, by the way, "la brea" is Spanish for "the tar", so the "La Brea tar pits" translates as 'the tar - the tar pits').

There should be a plaque in the sidewalk at the corner of Fairfax and Whilshire, because not only did Bob Fowler re-start his transcontinental flight from here on Thursday, 19 October, 1911, but it is also where, in 1921, Amelia Earhart took her first flight lesson, in a Curtiss Jenny. In fact, lots of aviation history happened in and around that corner.

Movie maker C.B. DeMille (below) , in town to direct his first blockbuster “Squaw Man”, operated an airline, "Mercury Aviation", out of there for a year or so - until it went bankrupt. 

Then in March 1921 the land was bought by pilot Emory Roger and his wife, and was renamed “Rogers’ Field” (above).  Emory then started up “Pacific Marine Airways”, in partnership with Sid Chaplin, brother to Charlie Chaplin.  

They flew Hollywood vacationers to and from Catalina Island,  and sold Curtiss sea planes out of a showroom on the field - at least they did until Emory died in a plane crash in November of 1921. Then Emory’s widow ran the field until 1923,  when she sold out to developers, and the airfield disappeared under concrete. That is what happens to everything historic in Los Angeles, sooner or later.

But that was all in the future. On 19 October, 1911 Wilshire Field was just an open space out near the end of Wilshire Boulevard.

Late on that afternoon Thursday, 19 October, 1911, Bob Fowler, at the controls of his new Wright B Flyer, renamed the "Cole Flyer", lifted off and headed east. He made only 9 miles that first day, landing in Pasadena. But the important thing was that he was back in the race.

Bob’s manager,  Reed Grundy, had always wanted him to start the race from Los Angeles because the mountains east of there were so much lower that the Sierra east of San Francisco, and because the Los Angeles Board of Reality was coughing up a $10,000 bonus if Bob Fowler started from L.A. - okay, Grundy mostly liked L.A. because of the bonus.

In fact, early the next morning, on Friday, 20 October, as Fowler was preparing to take off from Pasadena, he was called to the phone.  It was Grundy. He  had just been offered another paycheck if Bob made an appearance down Fairfax Avenue from Whilsire Field at the L.A. Motordrome (above).  But Bob put his foot down and said he’d rather give up flying than start this trip a third time.  Grundy got the message and Bob flew on to Riverside, California, probably spitting and cursing all the way about what a jackass his manager was. I’m sure NASCAR drivers feel the same way about their sponsors, once in awhile.

In two days of flying Bob Fowler had covered only 69 miles. And the next day, Saturday,  21 October,  1911, went even slower, because he was approaching the San Gorgonio Pass (above). The pass is only at 2,600 feet altitude, but it runs 22 miles long between the 9,000 foot tall Mount San Gorgonio and the 11,000 foot tall Mount San Jacinto, making it one of the deepest passes in the United States.  And one of the windiest. The winds in the pass have been used to generate electricity since the 1980's. 

For a 1911 cloth and wood airplane flying at between 2 and 400 feet above the ground, passing between the towering mastiffs meant dangerous cross winds. The Cole Flyer struggled to make progress, and Bob gritted his teeth to keep the sand out of his mouth.

He was flying into some very interesting terrain. To his north was Mount Whitney, standing 14,505 feet above sea level, highest point in the lower 48 states. And just 76 miles to the southwest of his flight path was Death Valley, at 282 feet below sea level. 

Then, having left this geological drama behind him, Bob Fowler was now flying in cool winter temperatures across the Arizona desert basins and 10,000 foot tall mountain ranges. On Wednesday, 25 October he landed in Yuma, Arizona (above) on the Colorado River. Finally, after almost sixty days of starting and stopping and starting and crashing, Bob Fowler had escaped California.

Two hundred miles later, following the Southern Pacific Railroad line, Bob landed at Tucson, Arizona. And there had a brief encounter with a fellow traveler, the only other man on God’s green earth who truly understood what he was going through; Cal Perry Rogers.  They were together barely long enough to shake hands, and nobody had time to produce a camera. And then they separated without so much as a back slap or a pause to compare notes: so much for the brotherhood of the air. After all, there still was a race to win.

- 30 -