TITLE
Recommendation to request that City Manager direct the Director of the Airport, Mario Rodriguez, to contact the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the U.S. Postal Service Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee concerning their participation with Long Beach in the 100th Anniversary of the First Transcontinental Flight that began in Sheepshead Bay, New York and ended in the surf off Pine Avenue in Long Beach.
DISCUSSION
In the early 1900's, Long Beach was a choice site for aviators, Our long stretch of hard sand and surf were perfect for early aviators to launch or to land their balloons and flying machines, Aviators swooped over the Pike and bathhouse. Stunt performers jumped out of balloon baskets onto the sand thrilling thousands who lined up near the beach to watch.
Long distance flights were unheard of until 1911. Just 8 years after the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, Calbraith Perry ("Cal") Rodgers completed the first transcontinental flight from Sheepshead Bay, New York, in the surf of Long Beach, California on December 10, 1911.
William Randolph Hearst offered a $50,000 prize to the first aviator completing a flight coast-to-coast within 30 days. Rodgers, the son of naval hero Oliver Perry, convinced the Armour Company to finance his race, and in turn, he displayed a "Vin Fiz" advertisement (Armour's news grape soft drink) on the wing of his Wright Model EX-1 pusher plane.
Rodgers trip was full of mishaps and crashes and he missed Hearst's deadline of 30 days to complete the trip and win the prize money. So when the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce contacted him in Pasadena (where he was recovering from crash injuries) and offered him $1,000 (some stories say as much as $5,000 was paid by the LB Chamber of Commerce) to finish his flight in Long Beach, Rodgers accepted.
More than 50,000 people (with the Long Beach Municipal Band playing in the background) lined up to watch Rodgers drop into the surf as his friends (and Long Beach aviators) Fra...
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