America's First International Air Meet
Half-way between downtown Los Angeles and San Pedro harbor, on a hill top call Dominguez, one single event held January 10-20, 1910, was destined to convert the city of Los Angeles from an agricultural center to a major industrial city --America's First International Air Meet.
The whole idea actually began in St. Louis, Missouri. Glenn Hammond Curtiss, as the lone American entrant at the First International Aviation Meet held at Rheims, France, in August 1909, had won world-wide fame by winning the Gordon Bennett Cup Race and the Prix de la Vitesse. Following the Rheims Meet, Albert Bond Lambert, a leading industrialist and aviation enthusiast, offered Glenn Curtiss a guarantee of $5,000 to fly his record-making biplane, the "Golden Flyer," at St. Louis, Missouri, in October 1909. Thousands of St. Louis citizens had turned out to watch Glenn Curtiss. The public's interest in Curtiss's flights moved Roy Knabenshue, one of America's pioneer balloonists and dirigible operators, to gather a group of aviators present at St. Louis, including Curtis, to discuss the possibility of capitalizing upon the growing interest in aviation. Their consensus called for the immediate scheduling of a first-class air meet featuring aeroplanes and as many famous aviators as possible. Los Angeles was the ideal choice for a meet to be held in January, 1910.
By late 1909, Los Angeles was looking for the stimulus which such an event could provide. Max Ihmsen, general manager of the Los Angeles Examiner, was sitting in his Los Angeles office one day in 1909 when Dick Ferris walked in and introduced himself as the representative of Roy Knabenshue and the other St. Louis aviators. Max Ihmsen was enthusiastic but offered a suggestion: "Why not make the meet International in scope? Let's bring in Europe!"
Aviation was big in Europe, yet interest in aviation in the United States was distinctly different save for a few pioneers, ballooning and dirigible development occupied the interest on this side of the Atlantic chief among them Roy Knabenshue. By contrast, Europeans had achieved varying degrees of success in aviation. Huge cash prizes for outstanding aeroplane performances, plus encouragement from several European governments had fostered this development. Louis Paulhan was the product of this trend, clearly one of the most colorful aviators on the Continent.
Louis Paulham's fame as a specialist in the daring or unique came about as a result of dual distance and endurance records set of eighty-three and seven-tenth's miles in two hours, forty-three minutes, twenty-four and four-tenths seconds. The feat made him world famous. Max Ihmsen cabled Edmund Cleary, the manager for Louis Paulhan inquiring his interest in the idea. Louis Paulhan was clearly Europe's aviator of choice, having won first prize in Paris for his new Farman biplane and Cleary was an American promoting his aviation feats. Cleary agreed to bring Paulhan for a fee of $50,000.
The only Americans who could assert claim to competency and experience, both as builders and pilots, were Glenn H. Curtiss and the Wright brothers Wilbur and Orville. Ironically, the Wright brothers didn't become overnight celebrities. It wasn't until 1908, five years after their famous flight, when Wilbur Wright traveled to France to demonstrate the Wright Flyer III, which was built three years earlier, at a special exhibition held on August 8 near LeMans, France, that the brothers became celebrities. Wilbur Wright' flying ability so outclassed European flyers that day that he was instantly made a hero.
But it was Glenn Curtiss, the following year, who had achieved the greatest reputation as an aviator on the European Continent as a result of the International Aviation Meet at Rheims, France. This naturally created a rivalry between Glenn H. Curtiss and the Wright brothers here in the United States.
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Mark J. Denger
