he star attraction of the 1911 Dawes County Fair in
Chadron, Sept. 12-15, was the twice-daily exhibition
flights by barnstormer Charles F. Walsh (1877-1912),
a native of California. Walsh, flying a Curtiss biplane,
was advertised by the Chadron Journal on Sept. 15 to be
"the first aviator to make a flight in northwestern Nebraska.
Our skies are used to ducks and other birds but never before
have they had bird men going and coming as gracefully as
the eagle."
Walsh experienced only a slight mechanical problem with
an engine switch during his flights at Chadron. But he wasn't
so lucky at Kearney, where during a previous exhibition
flight on Aug. 4, the plane ran into a telephone wire and
crashed into a cottonwood tree. Walsh, unhurt, arranged for
another plane to be shipped to Kearney and on Aug. 9 made
six successful flights before a crowd of about 4,000 people.
From Kearney, Walsh traveled to Fremont where he ran
into legal difficulties after his exhibition flight's emergency
landing damaged a farmer's cornfield.
Shortly after his appearance at Chadron in mid-
September, Walsh was in Neligh, where "after the first
flight the machine was wrecked and the driver thrown out."
Fortunately, the aviator wasn't hurt. In October, Walsh made
exhibition flights in Beatrice at the Gage County Fair, Oct.
2-6, where he told the Beatrice Express on Oct. 5 that he had
been flying for a year and a half and that "there is very little
danger in a straight-away flight. It is cutting the fancy stunts
that has caused the death of so many of the birdmen."
Walsh's words now seem prophetic. His flying career
came to an abrupt end scarcely a year later, when
he plunged to his death on Oct. 3, 1912, during an
exhibition flight in Trenton, New Jersey. He was reportedly
attempting his crowd-pleasing "dip of death" stunt at the
time. ■
Visit the Nebraska State Historical Society's website at
Nebraskahistory.org.
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A Brief History
A Birdman at the Fair
By Patricia C. Gaster,
Nebraska State Historical Society
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Above, Charles F. Walsh and his plane at Chadron, Sept. 13, 1911. Below, Walsh flying at Chadron same day.
10 NEBRASKAland • OCTOBER 2015
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