In the fall of 1909, just six years after the Wright brothers had managed a 59-second flight 852 feet above the sand hills of the North Carolina coast, the Los Angeles Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association was busy seeking contributions to hold the country's first International Air Meet.  "Los Angeles should not lose this opportunity to be the focus of the world's attention and the scene of a history-making competition," the Los Angeles Times reminded its readers, and Henry Huntington chipped in $50,000 for the meet, which prompted an editorial comment, "If the airship is destined to put the railroads and trolley cars out of business, it doesn't seem to worry Mr. Huntington."

On January 10, 1910, some 25,000 men, women and children turned up at the Aviation Field on the old Dominguez Ranch to watch Glenn Curtiss take off in a biplane on the West's second powered flight (the first had occurred the day before when Curtiss tested one of his airplanes.). "It was a day that will never be forgotten in Southern California," the Los Angeles Times declared, and its reporter was hard-pressed to find words for what he had just witnessed.  "It is almost like the sensations of a dream," he wrote. "You feel an exhilaration that lifts you out of yourself.  One is so accustomed to see and hear the strain and tug of the trolley car and the wagon that this seems almost unearthly."

Aviation Comes to California

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