Harry Powers

j Harry Powers

HARRY W. POWERS

You can see a beautiful photo of him on the Fitchburgh Historical Society website.

Harry W. Powers
Class of 1897
May be viewed at:
Fitchburg Historical Society

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
via email from Roy Nagl, 12-30-05 Dear Ralph:
     Just by accident, while looking for crash photos of biplanes, I stumbled across a photo, on the "El Paso, Illinois Postcards" web site, of early aviator Harry Powers and his Curtiss biplane, before he crashed it, at the El Paso Fair, in Illinois, on September 11, 1911.
     The link to the photo is at Harry Powers and to the description on El Paso, Illinois Postcards

"Harry Powers, in this Curtiss biplane, attempted to take off on September 11, 1911, but crashed demolishing the plane. He was performing for the El Paso Fair, and this crash is believed to be the first plane crash in Central Illinois. Powers was not seriously injured."

     I didn't notice a web page for Harry Powers on your web site, but Tom Yanul mentions him in a communication that you posted on your web page about Johnny Green.

ONLINE RESOURCES If you search for "Harry W. Powers" using the Google search engine, (1-5-06), you will find about 49 links, one of them offering much information on his career.

Cicero Flying Field
Origin, Operation, Obscurity and Legacy - 1891 to 1916 This is a remarkably rich source of information on the activities on the Cicero Flying Field and of the many pioneer aviators, both known and unknown, who operated there. Carroll F. Gray has assembled a wealth of material, both textual and photographic, to make this a "must visit" for anyone who wants to learn about early aviation and aviators. Carroll is to be congratulated for making it availabe to our online community. You can access the site by clicking on the title above.
If time is limited, you may want to use the FIND function on "Harry W. Powers" to locate the several instances of his story on the page.

Flight01 This page offers the following brief account of Harry's activities in 1912.

"Harry W. Powers of Oshkosh conferred with the officers of the Waupaca Advancement Association, Wednesday, and selected the open space east of Berlin street, known as Demarest field, as the best place for starting and descending in case he makes a contract to "fly" in Waupaca during the home-coming event to be held in this city September 5 and 6."

You can access the page by clicking on the title above.

Fad to Fundamental: Airmail in America      This page on the Smithsonian National Postal Museum website offers the following paragraph which contains the name of a Harry W. Powers.

     "On May 21, 1919, Second Assistant Postmaster General Otto Praeger received a telegram from Harry W. Powers, Belmont Park airmail field manager regarding an errant flight of Charles Bradley. According to his telegram, "Bradley forced to land at Bath Beach, Brooklyn account fog. Everything OK. Mail sent to Bath Beach Post Office to be forwarded to New York. Low ceiling here."

     So far I haven't been able to confirm that he is the subject of this page, but I suspect that he is. You can access the article by clicking on the title above.

I have no information as to the dates of his birth or his death.

Editor's Note:
If you have any more information on this pioneer aviator,
please contact me.
E-mail to Ralph Cooper

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