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EDITOR'S DIARY
by Lee Merriman

COINCIDENCE, PASADENA IN AIR & SPACE?

With pride, noted our editorial the other day which reached back into the election-buried news to hail Bill Pickering's new honor...the Columbus Gold Medal for 1964...presented in Genoa, Italy, in recognition of his "high human significance in interplanetary exploration."

Whether by coincidence or not, what struck me was the significance of Pasadena leadership over a 60-year period, first in the conquest of air via the self-propelled balloon, and now in deep space.

So I fumbled in the desk drawer where I keep a hodge-podge of papers that one day may become pertinent and came up with this letter from my old friend N. A. Strain.

MR. M - Two 60th anniversaries of events which took place just two months apart are due before the end of the year. Each represents an initial milestone in the history of aviation.

In 1904, the St. Louis Exposition electrified the world when it offered $200,000 for aeronautic events. This was the first time that the United States had made a bid for aeronautic recognition. Unfortunately, nobody won the grand prize of $100,000.

***

On October 25, 1904, this nation's first self-propelled balloon flew over most of the St. Louis fair grounds. In preparation for landing, the engine failed and the airship drifted to East St. Louis in Illinois. The pilot gradually deflated the balloon and a safe landing was made in a muddy field.

On December 25, 1904 this same airship, the California Arrow, built by Captain T. S. Baldwin and piloted by Roy Knabenshue, made a sensational flight from Chutes Park, Los Angeles, to Pasadena. This was the first time that this part of the country had ever seen an airship of any kind in sustained flight.

Witnessed from San Gabriel, on Christmas afternoon of 1904, there arose in the western skies a strange-looking balloon. Turning broadside and heading for Pasadena it took on a cigar shape, had a "windmill" on one end, a box-like affair on the other, and a grappling skipper in between. He dropped anchor in Arroyo Seco and brought the ship to rest. The driver of an automobile simultaneously attempted to beat the flying time and lost by a slim margin.

***

Surely some of the prominent local newspapers have records of this feat. What a thrill it would be to see some of the old photo cuts together with some quotations from the first news reports of that historic afternoon in Southern California. 

Following that event Knabenshue became an independent builder of dirigibles. Test flights were usually made