Milestones

Aviator Glenn Curtiss Makes Historic Flight

After taking off from Euclid Beach on Aug. 31, 1910, the pilot and plane-maker landed at Cedar Point 1 hour and 17 minutes later.

One day after unfavorable flying conditions forced Glenn H. Curtiss to postpone a record-attempting, over-water flight from Euclid Beach to Cedar Point Beach, the famed aviator and airplane manufacturer took to the skies above Cleveland on Wednesday, Aug. 31, 1910.

“At 1:10 p.m., a telegram was received by the management of Cedar Point, saying that Curtiss had left Euclid Beach at 1:06 p.m.,” Springfield Daily News reporter Robert L. Clingerman wrote in the newspaper’s Sept. 1, 1910, edition. “A short while later a telegram came saying that Curtiss had passed the Union Depot at Cleveland ...”

The plane, which was powered by a 50-horsepower, eight-cylinder engine, was next spotted above Dover Bay at 1:26 p.m. and then Lorain at 1:46 p.m. As Curtiss approached Cedar Point and his admirers assembled, “guards were attempting to clear the beach in front of the Breakers Hotel, it being necessary to have everyone out of the water in order to eliminate any possible chance of accident in making a landing.”

Curtiss landed on the beach at Cedar Point at 2:23 p.m., setting a record for over-water flight, with the Cincinnati Enquirer reporting in its Sept. 1, 1910, edition that Curtiss made the 60-mile flight in 1 hour and 17 minutes.

When Curtiss landed at Cedar Point, there was no more keeping the crowds at bay, “which immediately swarmed down on the beach into the guy wires of the machine and lifting Mr. Curtiss on their shoulders, carried him away to the hotel, cheering wildly as they went.”

Curtiss then telephoned his wife to inform her that he had a safe and successful flight. About an hour and a half after landing, Curtiss appeared on the beach, inspecting his airplane’s engine as the crowd cheered him on. Although the aviator had originally planned a return flight to Cleveland for later that same afternoon, weather conditions forced him to postpone until the next day. — Nathan Havenner Pilot Glenn H. Curtiss seated in his Hudson Flyer biplane with spectators standing in the background