Viewing page 2 of 10

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[stamped]] FROM THE FLYING PIONEERS BIOGRAPHIES OF HAROLD E. MOREHOUSE [[/stamped]]

HARRY PARK
Pioneer Curtiss Aviator - Printer

[[image]]

Harry Park was born in Baltimore, Maryland November 24, 1869. Information is lacking concerning his early life and education, but as a young man he became a trick cyclist, followed the circus circuits and at one time rode down Pike's Peak in Colorado on a one-wheel bicycle. Later he raced automobiles and developed an act of leaping from one speeding car to another alongside.

Park became interested in flying in 1910 and there is evidence that he enrolled for flying lessons with Tom Benoist at St. Louis, Missouri in March, 1911. This evidently did not work out and shortly afterward he joined J. N. Sparling of East St. Louis, Illinois who had built a Curtiss-type pusher biplane, using a 30 H.P. Detroit Aeromotor engine. Park was reportedly living in Portland, Oregon at that time.

Sparling was looking for some one to fly his plane and gave Park the chance to try to learn to fly it. By late March Park was making short hops and on his tenth flight made a circle of the field. They were plagued by motor trouble and in April removed the Aeromotor and installed a 4-cylinder Elbridge engine. With this change Park made more rapid progress with his flying practice and soon made an 18 mile cross-country flight. 

1