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Most of them rode the train, then walked the half-mile to the field. Cars were pretty primitive then, with canvas tops, so only a very small number of people came in cars. Anybody who could walk, and some who couldn't, made it to the meet. You had businesses closing, schools letting out, women's groups coming in en masse. "I don't think any other event has had that kind of effect of shutting down the city for two weeks. Schools in the honored districts were closed on those days, so when it was Los Angeles' turn, a 13-year-old named Jimmy Doolittle (who himself became a famous race pilot, before gaining even more fame for leading a World War II bombing raid on Tokyo) got to see his first airplane. To draw out-of-towners, the meet's executive committee, of which Ferris was a member, had cleverly arranged for each day to honor a different city: "San Diego Day," "San Francisco Day," and so on. More than 20,000 packed the stands each day. Fans clambered aboard Huntington's streetcars, which left the city for the field every two minutes. One five-wing "multi-plane" built by a local high school teacher, for example, participated only as a static display it couldn't get off the ground.ĭespite the nearly empty skies, the meet caused a sensation in Los Angeles. Although 43 flying machines were officially entered, only 16 showed up, and not all of them flew. Skilled and daring pilots were not plentiful in 1910 America. But all helped achieve the goal of bringing together some of the most skilled and daring pilots in the United States. More realistic were the prizes for breaking major world records, although many of those too were never claimed. Much of it was for specific tasks, such as $10,000 for a nonstop balloon flight to the Atlantic coast, which went unawarded. Workers had erected a grandstand capable of seating 26,000, and pitched large tents for the pilots to store and work on their airplanes. The races-along with demonstrations-took place at Dominguez Field, just south of Los Angeles, on land loaned by the family of Manuel Dominguez, from January 10 to 20. On the balloon's side were the words "It's all in the Examiner." And it was, including fashion tips for women spectators. Hearst, who had traveled down from San Francisco, arranged for a hot-air balloon to be tethered on the grounds during the meet. One of the first to see economic opportunity in air racing was newspaper owner William Randolph Hearst, who flogged the event in his Los Angeles Examiner, one of the city's four daily newspapers. So the feeling was: If we can do that, we can do anything." "But there was a great economic optimism, with the city bringing in water and getting a port, both in August 1909. "No one knew who would come," says Judson Grenier, a history professor retired from California State University at Dominguez Hills. (For Huntington it was a no-brainer his trains, after all, would haul spectators to the meet.) Knabenshue contacted Los Angeles promoter Dick Ferris, who in turn, got the Los Angeles Merchants and Manufacturers Association on board for financial support, and persuaded railroad magnate Henry Huntington to pledge $50,000. Curtiss agreed to the plan, though he had no intention of using the venue to defend the trophy that race would be months away and held in New York, where he believed more money was to be made than in California.
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They contacted Curtiss, thinking his fame would help draw crowds as big as those that attended the event in Reims. In October 1909, airship pilot Roy Knabenshue, from Toledo, Ohio, and Charles Willard, the first man Curtiss taught to fly, met and decided to use southern California as a winter base for their aerial demonstrations. And thus America got its first air race, held in the city of Los Angeles 100 years ago. By bringing home air racing's first important award-the Gordon Bennett Trophy-Curtiss also won the right for his country to host the next international air meet. When Glenn Curtiss edged Frenchman Louis Blériot at the world's first air race, in Reims, France, in August 1909, few Americans had seen an airplane, let alone an air race.
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