Morning Feature: An American Aviation Pioneer

MaryinHammondsport

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Tuesday June 09, 2009 · 3:56 AM PDT

2009/06/09 · 03:56

I like to imagine the owners of my house just over a hundred years ago looking out a northeast-facing window to see history being made.

In those days this was part of a large farm with all the usual animals and crops, but a major part of the farm's income came from growing wine grapes, since Hammondsport at that time had dozens of wineries. From the house, vineyards stretched away toward the northeast before dropping off to the Keuka Lake valley out of sight below. The owners would have had a somewhat hazy view of the valley on the day I have in mind, had they glanced outside. It was a windy and drizzly Fourth of July here in the Finger Lakes of upstate New York.

Or perhaps, as I suspect, they were not home to look out the window. Knowing what was planned to happen "down on the flats" at the head of Keuka Lake, were they down there with a large majority of village residents and people from miles around? It was to be, after all, perhaps the most exciting day in Hammondsport's history.

Join me below the fold for the story of July 4, 1908 in Hammondsport, New York, and how it changed aviation history.

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