- Glenn and Lena Curtiss
A huge flock of “Bird Men” swooped into our city in 1910, when Memphis — yes, Memphis — hosted one of the first aviation meets in America. Wilbur and Orville Wright had made their famous flight at Kitty Hawk just seven years before, so this four-day event was many Memphians’ first look at those newfangled “aero-planes,” which one reporter described as “a weirdly shaped automobile on three wheels.”
He might have mentioned the wings, too.
Held at the Tri-State Fairgrounds April 7-10, 1910, the National Aero Meet featured noted flyer Glenn Curtiss (“the champion of the world”), Charles Hamilton (“the dare-devil of the air”), and a number of more modest aviators from around the country.
The photo here shows Curtiss with his wife, Lena, in the cockpit of their plane, Miss Memphis.
The Commercial Appeal bragged that “all eyes are on Memphis,” and workers transformed Main Street into “a glare of patriotic colors in honor of the thousands of visitors.” Local businesses jumped on the bandwagon with bizarre enticements. A newspaper ad for Lowenstein’s department store bragged, “Our rest rooms, a revelation of artistic beauty and luxurious comfort, are one of the interesting features of Memphis.”