My friend ’39 Chevy Ken has been an avid traveler to Wellsboro, Pennsylvania and parts up north for 50 years. He often invites me to go along with him and shares the history of this small town and local points of interest.
The Pennsylvania “Grand Canyon,” some old cemeteries behind taverns, and the historic Penn Wells Hotel are just a few sites that we have toured during some recent trips.
The Penn Wells Hotel has been receiving guests there for some 150 years. It is a grand place which was built in 1869 and renovated in 1920, and some famous guests included Groucho Marx and Joan Crawford.
Some visitors to the hotel, because of its eerie appearance, have suggested the hotel is haunted.
As my friend Ken and I were lifting a glass in the old hotel tavern, to toast our good trips, he suggested we visit the Glenn Hammond Curtiss Museum in Hammondsport, New York.
The museum is about an hour’s drive away. I admitted to Ken, my lack of knowledge about Glenn Curtiss; he suggested I would find the museum interesting.
So, the next morning, we headed north to Hammondsport, New York.
And there we found a museum dedicated to the achievements of one Glenn Hammond Curtiss to the aviation of this country.
For years in school and the study of history, students were taught that the greatest aviator inventors of flying machines were Orville and Wilbur Wright.
The Wright brothers, for sure, were credited with inventing, building and flying the world’s first successful airplane. On Dec. 17, 1903, they flew the Wright Flyer in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina; in aviation history this was the first successful, sustained and controlled flight of a heavier-than-air powered aircraft.
This flight, piloted by Wilbur, lasted 59 seconds and flew 120 feet.
Aviation had gained its wings.
On May 21, 1878, another young man by the name of Glenn Hammond Curtiss was born in Hammondsport, New York.
As a young boy he took an interest in bicycles and racing. He was a very meticulous individual and obviously thought beyond the box; his imagination would soar and take him places.
Soon Curtiss’ interest led to that evolution of a bicycle’s mechanics to motorcycles. Curtiss had wanted the bicycle to go faster and developed lightweight internal-combustion engines for motorcycles back in 1904.
On Jan. 23, 1907, Curtiss became the fastest man on earth when he traveled 136.3 miles per hour aboard one of his motorcycles at Ormond Beach, Florida.
In early 1904 Curtiss had sold one of his motorcycle engines to Thomas Baldwin who placed it on his dirigible flying machine. In 1907, Alexander Graham Bell had invited Curtiss to join the Aerial Experiment Association and his ‘invention’ skills would take to the air also.
Aviation, the development and operation of heavier-than-air aircraft would take flight to another height.
On July 4, 1908, Curtiss won the Scientific American Trophy when his airplane, the June Bug made the first public flight of at least l kilometer (0.6 mile) with an American airplane.
The Wright brothers would contest some of Curtiss’ aviation advancements for violation of their earlier patent prior to World War I. According to a Britannica report, the issue was ultimately resolved by the U.S. government.
Curtiss pioneered the design and operation of “flying boats,” those aircraft that could take off and land from the deck of a warship; he became a major manufacturer of aircraft engines.
His plane, “the Jenny,” was the standard training in American military service.
The Wright brothers had certainly demonstrated to the world that heavier-than-air flying machines were the mechanical birds of the future.
Bell, Curtiss and others, however, took aviation to higher limits. Curtiss had even built planes to depart and land on water since airports had not arrived yet.
When one thinks of aviation progress to date, you cannot ignore the earlier invention of Orville and Wilbur Wright. In reading C. R. Roseberry’s book, “Glenn Curtiss, Pioneer of Flight,” one can readily see, however, the imagination and wisdom of one Curtiss as aviation progressed with further improvements.
Albert Einstein once suggested that “Imagination is more important than knowledge” to an Inventor.
Orville Wright allegedly once suggested “No flying machine will ever fly from New York to Paris because no known motor can run at the requisite speed for four days without stopping.”
Glenn Curtis thought differently, and his flying boat crossed the Atlantic in stages in May 1919. Others would soon follow him nonstop.
Curtiss died of appendectomy complications on July 23, 1930, at the age of 52.
Let us remember him when we look to the sky.
