airplane

By Jim Dunn Bureau County Historical Society Board

Princeton old-timer H.C. Cook could hardly believe his eyes.

Cook, 90, was one of thousands of wide-eyed area residents who held their breath as a Wright brothers airplane took off from the Princeton fairgrounds, flew around the city, returned and landed safely on the racetrack’s infield.

The date was July 4, 1911. It was only seven and a half years after Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first manned flights of a motor-powered flying machine at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Airplanes were then in their infancy. Many Americans knew about them but had never seen one in flight. Because of their novelty, there was intense public interest in the invention.

The Wright brothers decided to capitalize on that interest. Back home in Dayton, Ohio, they trained young pilots, equipped them with new Wright airplanes, and sent them out across the country to give flying exhibitions that people paid to watch – an early version of the air shows that remain popular to this day.

Along with others in the crowd –men wearing slacks, white shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and straw hats, and women attired in summer frocks and light-colored hats –the elderly Cook walked from the fairgrounds grandstand on the city’s west side to a nearby exhibition tent.

There, the airplane, a winged contraption made of rubberized canvas imported from France, poles and slats made from spruce, wires, a gasoline engine and two push propellers, awaited public inspection, as did its pilot, James Clifford “J.C.” Turpin.

WINGS, continued on pg 6 attorney in Cook County, then entered politics. He ran for statewide office as a Republican unsuccessfully three times (for state treasurer, congressman-at-large and governor), then in 1940 he was elected U.S. senator from Illinois. He served in the Senate for eight years before Democrat Paul Douglas upset him in 1948.

Senate. Often wounded he returned to battle. He gave much for his country.”

C. Wayland Brooks is a Bureau County native of courage and achievement who gave much for his country. His life story deserves to be rediscovered, respected and retold, lest we forget.

Note to readers: Dunn, who retired as editor of the Bureau County Republican, is president of the Bureau County Historical Society Board.

Cook approached the airplane and gazed at it. Only a short time before, it had been flying high above the ground. Now, he could actually reach out and touch it.

“For many minutes, he stood beside it lost in wonder,” according to a story in the July 6, 1911, issue of the Bureau County Republican newspaper. As Cook, who was born in 1820, turned to leave the fairgrounds, he could be heard saying, “I never thought I would live to see it.”

The Republican writer observed, “To many, the flying machine was the most marvelous sight they ever saw.”

How that machine and its pilot came to be in Princeton is a story in and of itself.

THE PILOT

J.C. Turpin, also known as Clifford Turpin, was a handsome, brave 24-year-old when he arrived in Princeton to give four flight exhibitions over two days in July 1911.

Turpin, like the Wright brothers, hailed from Dayton, Ohio. After earning an engineering degree from Purdue University in 1908, he initially worked for his father’s gasoline engine company. However, the lure of flight soon captured his imagination.

Turpin left his father’s business in 1909 to help Wilbur and Orville Wright improve their airplane engines. Then he took flying lessons from the Wrights’ flying school in 1910, successfully soloed, and joined the Wright Exhibition Team.

Turpin and other Exhibition Team members spread out across the land, performing at state fairs and other large public gatherings. Community promoters in Princeton heard about the flying shows in Springfield, Joliet and Peoria in the spring of 1911. They decided to try to attract one to Bureau County.

WINGS, continued on page 12