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California for the winter. In December Somerville closed a contract with the Western Vaudeville Managers Association to conduct exhibition flights for them during the 1913 season. On December 26, 1912, the Illinois Aero Construction factory and buildings were destroyed by fire, including four planes, at an estimate loss of $35,000.

Following this bad setback the Somerville group decided to go ahead and build a new factory building, and construction was started on another biplane to replace the 1912 machine. On January 28, 1913, Somerville bought the wrecked Morane-Borel monoplane, formerly owned by George Mestach, at a United States Customs sale in Chicago. This plane had been involved in a mid-air collision at the 1912 Chicago Meet, causing the death of Wright pilot Howard Gill. The wreck included the 50 h.p. Gnome engine and a set of spare wings. Somerville announced he would rebuild the plane and have it ready for the 1913 exhibition season. He engaged West Coast mechanic-pilot Lester E. Holt, and Thomas Seely, for this work and by April the plane had been rebuilt and was ready to fly. Somerville planned to have Holt fly this monoplane for the season and expected to have Earl Daugherty return to fly the new biplane to fulfill his 1913 exhibition contract with Western Vaudeville people.

Daugherty returned to Coal city about May 1, 1913, and he and Holt flew exhibitions for Somerville throughout the Midwest during the summer season. Daugherty based his operations at Cicero Field, Chicago, during part of that period. Through the summer and fall of 1913 Somerville continued his experimental work and did some additional flying himself in connection with these activities. Later that fall, after Daugherty and Holt left, Mestach used the Borel monoplane to fill some late exhibition dates in the southwest.

In the spring of 1914 Daugherty returned and started flying the Borel monoplane, but the exhibition business was in a slump, so about mid-summer Somerville sold the monoplane to Daugherty.