Airship at Galena Fair
At the Galena Fair in 1911, the big attraction was an "airship," a bi-plane piloted by Harry Powers.
An accident at an earlier event left Mr. Powers hospitalized and unable to fly.
The surrogate chosen to replace him let everybody down when he refused to fly.
Alfred W Mueller Collection
We first became aware of this event when we came across this article in the Alfred W Mueller collection:
Galena Daily Gazette
A quick search through the digital archives of the Galena Daily Gazette revealed the injury and the hype leading up to the event:
The Big Letdown
Mr. Powers proxy, Saxe P Gantz, refused to fly at the fairgrounds, finding little room for takeoff and nowhere to land in an emergency:
