Grayson County TXGenWeb

Cal Rodgers

Two pioneer aviators, Calbraith "Cal" Rodgers and Charles A. Lindbergh, played prominent roles in the background history of the W.K. Kellogg Airport. In 1911, less than eight years after the Wright Brothers made their historic flight at Kitty Hawk, Cal Rodgers became the first pilot to fly coast-to-coast. On September 17th Rodgers started from Sheepshead Bay, New York in a competition to win a $50,000 prize offered by William Randolph Hearst to anyone who could fly coast-to-coast in 30 days or less. No one won the prize but Rodgers was the only pilot to complete the flight which lasted 49 days and ended at Pasadena at 4:08 p.m. on November 5, 1911 (Harris, 1964, p.81). His final stop before Pasadena was a landing at Newton's field, west of Pomona, the afternoon of November 5th to refuel and check his engine ("First Trans-Continental Aviator," 1911). Cal Rodgers was killed on April 3, 1912 near Long Beach when his plane hit a flock of sea gulls and plunged into the ocean. To honor the accomplishment of Rodgers the Kellogg Airport beacon was named the Rodgers Beacon and the field was dedicated to his memory.

Bryan Daily Eagle
Bryan, Texas
October 17, 1911

AVIATOR RODGERS AT POTTSBORO
Ignored Contract with Denison Firm and They Wouldn't Sell Him Gasoline

(By Associated Press)
Denison, Texas, Oct. 17 - Aviator Rodgers alighted near Pottsboro, seven miles north of Denison, at 9:30 a.m. this morning. A lack of gasoline caused him to stop and inability to get gasoline kept him there with prospects of a long delay. The firm which had agreed to supply him gasoline refused to do so because he did not light in Denison. The firm had a wagon waiting all yesterday and they were vexed when he flew over their heads. He left McAlester at 7:30 a.m.
Rodgers left Pottsboro for Fort Worth about noon, having secured gasoline from a special train.

LOST HIS WAY
(By Associated Press)
Fort Worth, Texas, Oct. 17 - Aviator Rodgers lost his way and is going toward Wichita Falls. Efforts are made in every town to attract his attention and turn him toward Fort Worth.

Historical Marker
Pottsboro, Grayson Co., Texas

Born	January 12, 1879 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	Long Beach, California
Cause of death	Air crash
Spouse(s)	Mabel Rodgers
Relatives	Oliver Hazard Perry Matthew Calbraith Perry

In March 1911, he visited John at the Wright Company factory and flying school in Dayton, Ohio and became interested in aviation. He received 90 minutes of flying lessons from Orville Wright, and on August 7, 1911, he took his official flying examination at Huffman Prairie and became the 49th aviator licensed to fly by the Federation Aeronautique International. He was one of the first civilians to purchase a Wright Flyer.

US Map courtesy of Sherman Museum

Cross Country Flight

Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962. Austin, Texas. The Portal to Texas History. http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101195/. Accessed February 6, 2016.

Publisher William Randolph Hearst offered the Hearst prize, US $50,000 to the first aviator to fly coast to coast, in either direction, in less than 30 days from start to finish. Rodger had J. Ogden Armour, of Armour and Company, sponsor the flight, and in return he named the plane, a Wright Model EX designed for exhibition flights, after Armour's grape soft drink Vin Fiz.

Rodgers left from Sheepshead Bay, New York, on September 17, 1911, at 4:30 p.m. He reached Chicago on October 9, 1911. It was decided to avoid the Rocky Mountains, he would take a southerly route, flying south through the Midwest until reaching Texas. He turned west after reaching San Antonio. On November 5, 1911, he landed at Tournament Park in Pasadena, California, at 4:04 pm in front of 20,000 people. He had missed the prize deadline by 19 days. On December 10, 1911, he landed in Long Beach, California, and taxied his plane into the Pacific Ocean. He had carried the first transcontinental U.S. Mail pouch. The trip required 70 stops, and he paid the Wright brothers' technician, Charlie Taylor, $70 a week to be his mechanic. Taylor followed the flight by train and performed maintenance for the next day's flight. The next transcontinental flight was made by Robert G. Fowler.

DEATH
On April 3, 1912, while making an exhibition flight over Long Beach, California, he flew into a flock of birds, causing the plane to crash into the ocean. His neck was broken and his thorax damaged by the engine of the airplane. He died a few moments later, a few hundred feet from where the Vin Fiz ended its transcontinental flight. The aircraft in this last flight was the spare Model B he had carried in the special train during the transcontinental flight, rather than the Vin Fiz. The Vin Fiz itself was later given to the Smithsonian Institution by Galbraith's widow, Mabel Rodgers. According to contemporary records, his was the 127th airplane fatality since aviation began and the 22nd American aviator to die in an accident. He was also the first pilot who fatally crashed as a result of a bird strike.

Rodgers was interred in Allegheny Cemetery.

RODGERS ENDS PACIFIC FLIGHT OF 4,231 MILES
Flyer, Who Left Here September 17 in Hearst Contest, Wildly Welcomed in Pasadena

HE IS ALMOST CRUSHED
Fully Ten Thousand Men and Women in Mad Rush to Bi-Plane as It Touches Down
by Otheman Stevens

Pasadena, California, November 5 - A few minutes after 4 o'clock this afternoon, Calbraith P. Rodgers was sighted by a small boy on top row of the bleachers at Tournament Park.
"There he comes!" yelled the youngster, thereby announcing to the world that the greatest aviation feat of the century had been completed: that Rodgers had crossed the continent with a record of something like 4,000 miles in 50 days in a Wright biplane.
A world's record had been established. Rodgers was the first man to do this wonder - to drive an airship from ocean to ocean - and together with the howling small boy on the bleachers, 10,000 or 12,000 men and women went crazy with the joy of it.
No one noted the exact time of Rodger's alighting except the official timekeeper. I did not because I was in the centre of a maelstrom of fighting, screaming, out-of-their-minds-with-joy men, women and children.

STRAIGHT AS THE CROW FLIES
Far to the southeast a pin point appeared in the sky; that was when the youngster's shrill yell was heard. Gradually it grew larger until the wings of the machine could be picked out against the azure, evidently following the line of the Southern Pacific track, about 1,500 feet high. Then Rodgers swerved to the northwest and approached Tournament Park. The assemblage seemed to comprehend what his advent meant, for in an instant every one seemed to go crazy.
Rapidly, experts said at a rate of 65 or 70 miles an hour, Rodgers came directly for the park, and when he arrived overhead of the south end of the bleachers, he seemed to feel the frenzy of the mass of people below him, for he began the most fantastic and perilous evolutions I have ever seen. Paulhan gave us an indication of recklessness, and poor martyred Hoxsey in his spiral dips and corkscrew landings delightfully terrorized us at Aviation Park, Los Angeles, but all of these were as nothing compared to the dangerous feats which Rodgers performed above our heads.

10,000 RUSH FOR THE MACHINE
Five or six times he circled the field in this manner and then suddenly swooped down to the centre field opposite the club cottage.
Meanwhile, the announcer, with an enormous megaphone, had been hysterically rushing about the course warning the crowds back from the infield. A dozen or more of Pasadena's "finest" had stationed themselves with clubs in hand, ready for a rush. But as soon as the skids of Rodger's machine touched earth Ready and his megaphone and the entire police force seemed to be wiped out of existence.
Fully 10,000 people rushed madly for the machine. The policemen got to their feet, and with club and punches tried their best to hold us back. Men stumbled and went down and were carelessly trodden as the wave of humanity swept on.
After Rodgers was rescued the flight back to the grand stand was even more strenuous.

GETS A POSEY FROM FAIR HANDS
The foreguard surrounded Rodgers, sustaining him on either side. But the big Chief of Police, who had lost his club, but whose mighty fists were more efficacious, opened a path for them.
Half a dozen times I felt my feet squish sickeningly into some flabby person beneath on the ground, but there was no stopping, and in 20 minutes' transit of a couple of hundred yards we landed Rodgers in front of the grand stand.
In the midst of all the turmoil a motor car containing Mrs. Davis, wife of the president of the Pasadena Board of Trade, and Miss Irene Grosse had been kept in readiness at the grand stand. Rodgers was hoisted up on the footboard of the car and the 2 ladies presented him with a magnificent posey on the part of the city.
I noticed when Rodgers alighted he had a cigar in his mouth, and all through the skirmish he manfully held on to it, but at the sight of the ladies he threw it away and, I thought, turned a bit pale.
Rodgers has been described to me as a woman hater, but it seems he was simply a woman fearer, for this hero....