From the Introduction to Part 1 by Charles W. Arrington
"The early era in
Southern Indiana aviation opened in August 1906 when Chicago aeronaut
Horace B. Wild flew his gas-filled airship Eagle over New Albany and
thrilled onlookers with a landing at Glenwood Park on the city’s east
side. After the
advent
of exhibition flying in Louisville, a few local citizens became
interested in building their own airplanes. It is recorded that Edgar L.
Gray, after watching a flight by Glenn Curtiss at Churchill Downs in
1910, built his own airplane in his hometown of Memphis, Indiana. It
made one or two flights before being sold and is remembered as being the
first locally produced airplane in Clark and Floyd Counties.
"While local residents
were enthusiastic about flight, these early efforts were merely baby
steps in the progress of aviation. It would take an earth-shaking event
for flight to reach its stride. This happened during World War I when
the
airplane became a weapon of war, requiring unprecedented technological
improvements in aircraft design and the need to train thousands of
pilots to fly them in combat.
"It was at this time
that William Russell Beeler from New Albany charted a course that would
make him the first prominent figure in Southern Indiana aviation. Beeler
learned to fly in 1919, and in 1920 he flew for Ernest Mason’s short
lived Mason Dixon Air Line in New Albany. Later in the decade, he opened
the first of three airfields in Clark County with the most successful of
these being his Jeffersonville Airport, which opened in 1930 along what
is now Eastern Boulevard in today’s Clarksville.
"Russell Beeler laid the foundation for aviation in Southern Indiana through his involvement in nearly every aspect of aviation in both Clark and Floyd Counties up to World War II. His tenure in aviation from 1919 to 1945 covered a period when the airplane went from being a novelty to an important and reliable mode of transportation. The early era ended when Beeler closed Jeffersonville Airport due to security restrictions imposed by World War II and he donned a military uniform as a pilot in the Army Air Forces Air Transport Command at Memphis, Tennessee, for the duration of the war."
162 pages
81/2"x11" hardcover edition
180+ illustrations
100 years of history
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