Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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ROBERT G. FOWLER



Banging his way across the desert between Los Angeles and Phoenix at 40 mph in a racecar did not pump enough adrenaline into his blood so Robert Fowler went out to Dayton, OH and bought an airplane from Orville and Wilbur Wright. They mounted a Cole automobile engine in it and taught him to fly. Before long he found some sponsors who provided two more Wright Flyers and a ground support team. They wanted to take a shot at the 50 thousand dollar prize being offered by the Hearst Newspaper Syndicate for the first transcontinental flight across North America. On September 11, 1911 Fowler leapt into the air from Golden Gate Park in San Francisco hoping to follow the railroad tracks as far east as Chicago anyway. He stopped for a short chat with the Governor of California in Sacramento and then made it as far as Auburn, CA before darkness fell. Next morning he leapt into the air once again. He was hoping to make it across the mountains but got sucked into a downdraft and crashed into a grove of trees in a rocky canyon a couple of miles east of Alta. That ended the first attempt and gave him a sprained ankle, but he still had two more planes and plenty of reckless abandon. When the swelling in his sprained ankle went down a bit he launched a second attempt from Los Angeles that still enabled him to follow the railroad tracks but it would avoid those treacherous mountains. On October 13, 1911 he became the first and only aviator ever to make a landing in the Territory of Arizona. He did so at Yuma. Four months later Arizona was admitted to statehood. The rest of the journey was pretty much uneventful and it culminated at Jacksonville, Florida on November 8. The first transcontinental flight took just short of two months to complete. In April of 1913 Fowler became the first aviator to fly nonstop from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. That flight took 57 minutes, but he only flew across the Isthmus of Panama. It was a publicity stunt, but the publicity it generated landed Fowler in big trouble with the feds. He followed the route of the Panama Canal which was still under construction and took along a passenger named Ray Duhem. Ray took some photos of the canal fortifications that were used in an article written by Riley Scott for Sunset Magazine. The article was entitled “Can the Panama Canal Be Destroyed from the Air?” After the story came out the War Department asked John W. Preston, the U S Attorney in San Francisco, to investigate. On July 10, 1914 warrants were issued for the arrest of Fowler, Duhem, Scott, and Charles K. Field, who was the editor at Sunset. Preston asserted that new laws passed by Congress made it illegal as hell for anyone to take or publish photos of any of our fortifications at all. The next day Preston, that jackass, and all of his culprits appeared before the US Commissioner in San Francisco and Fowler explained he had permission from the chief engineer, George Washington Goethals, to make the flight and take the pictures. The commissioner held that the permission granted did not constitute permission to publish and trail was set for August 10, 1914. The grand jury held that the whole case was a humbug and did not issue an indictment based on lack of evidence. Fowler passed away in 1966 and is at rest in a cemetery in Santa Clara, CA. He was one of the earliest of aviation pioneers and had devoted his life to operating airport facilities and teaching others to fly.

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Photos

ROBERT G FOWLER
This statue of Fowler has been erected on the site where he made the first landing in Yuma. It is located in a parking lot beside the Yuma Landing bar and grill on 4th Avenue.

YUMA LANDING
Yuma Landing is a dandy place to chow down or knock back a few frosty cold adult libations. The walls inside are adorned with plenty of old photos and artifacts. If you stay overnight at the Coronado breakfast at Yuma Landing is free. After breakfast visit the Quartermaster Depot. It is easily within walking distance.