Aviation Excitement in Rittman

The early days of aviation came slowly to rural Ohio, but on the morning of September 30, 1911, Rittman would be exposed to it in a rather spectacular way.

Calbraith Rogers was a young, somewhat inexperienced pilot, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of 32, he visited the flight training institute operated by the Wright brothers in Dayton, Ohio. After just 90 minutes of instruction, he soloed for the first time. Rogers became just the 49th person to receive flying credentials from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, and was one of the first private purchasers of a Wright Flyer in the nation.

William Randolph Hearst had sponsored prize money of $50,000 (about $1.2 million in 2011 dollars) for the first person to pilot an airplane coast to coast in the USA. Rogers felt up the the challenge, but needed a sponsor. The Armour Corporation had introduced a new soft drink called Vin Fiz. They offered Rogers $5.00 per mile if he advertised their drink on his flyer. The also agreed to provide a coast-to-coast train that would follow Rogers with support crew, supplies and spare parts. Also included was a special car outfitted with a workshop for making repairs.

Rogers took off from Sheepshead Bay in New York on September 11, 1911 and headed west, following railways all the way, only flying during daylight.

On September 30, Rogers took off from Kent and headed Southwest. Telegraph operators notified cities in his path of the upcoming excitement. Rittman, being in the path, set out to greet the intrepid aviator. According to Linsey Williams in his "Arise Wild Land", "The Wayne County Democrat said the plane "whizzed by at a 40-mile-per hour clip, in some spurts going at better than a mile per minute!".

Rogers refueled in Mansfield and continued his flight, ultimately completing his epic journey at Long Beach, California on November 5, 1911, with more than 20,000 onlookers there to witness the historic event. He had missed the prize money by 19 days, but had accomplished the first transcontinental flight in the USA. first to carry a bag of mail across the country by airplane.

Sadly, on April 3, 1912, scarcely one year after first piloting an airplane, Rogers crashed his flyer into the Pacific Ocean off of Long Beach, California, and died. He had become the first pilot to die as a result of a bird strike.