For current information about the facility:

Donna L. Harris, Museum Manager

Father Patrick McPolin and Betty Gemelli have put great effort into preserving the Dominguez Rancho and the early aviation history associated with it..

Betty Gemelli, former Curator and Docent Coordinator of the Dominguez Rancho Adobe Museum, has written a wonderful book about the years she, Father Pat and the Claretian Priests have spent preserving the facility and educating about it's history. Without them, the buildings would have rotted away into dust long ago.

email Betty Gemelli

Father Pat is well known in aviation circles. He has been a beacon of enthusiasm and preservation activism for many years.

I'm sure he would love to hear from you if you share his love of our great aviation heritage.

Send a message to Father Pat

Right: Historic Marker for Dominguez Air Meet, 1910; the first international air meet in United States and the second international air meet ever held.

The worlds first international air meet was held at Rheims, France in 1909.

Right: Dominguez Hill. The large radio tower marks the top of the hill. The airmeet was north of that spot and west of the adobe, where the trailer park is now.

Dominguez Ranch was chosen because it had plenty of unobstructed land, winds were prevalent and it was easily reached by trolley from downtown Los Angeles.

Also, being on top of a hill, the public would have to pay admission to see the action. Angeles.

Looking north from Del Amo overpass.

Pacific Flyer

Jan. 2001 article

"Aviation Artists Feted At Gala Event"

Re: Flight Path Learning Center fund raiser.

"Another of the night's themes was the Dominguez Hills, site of the first air meet in the U.S. and only the second in the world. Held in 1910 at Rancho Dominguez, Calif., the meet has been the subject of numerous works of art, plus a future TV documentary, book and CD.

The Rev. Patrick J. McPolin, a Catholic priest and aviation enthusiast, provided the invocation for the event. McPolin is also the curator of the Rancho Dominguez Home and Museum and the 1910 Air Meet & Early Birds of Aviation Museum."

Pacific Flyer, Jan. 2001

Father Pat is well known at the Good Year Airship Operations field located just 3 miles west of where Roy Knabenshue piloted his 'gas bag' in 1910.

Knabenshue is buried in Burbank, CA at the 'Portal of the Folded Wings'.

The JPG above is 'borrowed' without permission from Carroll Gray's wonderful site:

http://earlybirds.org/

My appologies; photography at the museum was unaviable to me at the time.

Cal State University Dominguez Hills has digital archives to share.

And a website about the 1910 air meet. http://www.csudh.edu/1910airmeet/index.html

...and a '1910 Air Meet Committee'.

A great book was written by D. D. Hatfield and published by the Northrop University Press in 1976.

If you can find a copy somewhere, it is a wonderful collection of newspaper clippings and other information from the time.

I've heard that most of the Hatfield collection is in a truck container at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, WA. They only have a few copies of "Los Angeles Aeronautics", another in Hatfields series on early aviation.

Carol Osborn explaines that, as Dr. Hatfields Executor, she only dealt with his personal property.

The large Northrop University / American Hall of Aviation History collection went first to Santa Monica 'Museum of Flying' and then to Seattle 'Museum of Flight'.

I don't understand why our local Southern California aviation history is in a truck cargo container, un inventoried after years. It should be here, in our area, where we will take care of it and display it.

The Wright brothers had flown at Kitty Hawk on Dec. 17, 1903 and then returned to their bicycle business in Dayton. They concentrated on securing patents and licensing agreements, believing that their patents on wing warping to control flight would preclude others from flying.

In France in 1906, Santos-Dumont made the first sustained flight outside the U.S. Unlike the reclusive Wright brothers, his flights were witnessed, recorded and celebrated by the general public.

The French organized the first international air meet in history, which was held in Rheims, France on August 22, 1909. There was only one representative from the U.S., where sustained powered flight had first occurred and it wasn't the Wright brothers; it was Glenn H. Curtiss from Hammondsport, New York. He flew his "Golden Flyer" which was built by the Aerial Experiment Association, a group founded by Alexander Graham Bell.

The Rheims air meet convinced the doubting public that mechanical flight was truly possible. Curtiss won the main event at this meet at a speed of 46.5 miles per hour, and the rules stated that the record must be defended in his home country, the U.S.

After returning from France, Roy Knabenshue and Charles Willard decided that with no flying activity in the east because of winter, Los Angeles would be the perfect place to fly. They contacted Glenn Curtiss and began planning an international air meet even greater that the one at Rheims the year before. To insure the international flavor of the meet they invited Louis Paulhan from France.

An area between Compton and Long Beach on the Dominguez Ranch (Rancho San Pedro) was chosen because it was open and undeveloped. It was also near the Pacific Electric lines and, because it was high up on a mesa, the winds were favorable each afternoon and the public would have to pay admittance to see the action. By 1910 there had been reports of successful flights in the east but no one had yet witnessed actual flight out here in the west. The air meet started on January 10, 1010 and lasted for 10 days.

The following passages are from the D. D. Hatfield book, "Dominguez Air Meet", Northrop University Press, 1976.

"At one o'clock a yellow winged Curtiss biplane was rolled to the starting point in front of the grandstand and the crowd became silent as they realized that the action was about to start. Glenn Curtiss indicated he was ready to start and the area was cleared by the field deputies. A mechanic swung the propeller and the engine started with a roar. As the machine began to roll a cheer went up from the crowd, which changed to an amazed silence as it rose from the ground and sailed gracefully around the course at a height of 50 feet. After 1 minute and 28 seconds in the air, covering a distance of 5/8 of a mile, Curtiss landed easily and rolled to a stop within 300 feet of the starting point. This was the first successful powered airplane flight made in the west. The skeptics were convinced an airplane could fly and the crowd was satisfied their time was well spent." From the book, "The Dominguez Air Meet" by D.D. Hatfield.

With 11 airplanes, 3 dirigibles and 7 balloons and daily feats of daring, the first ever air meet was a huge success. Lincoln Beachey and Roy Knabenshue made ascents from the Huntington Park balloon field in their dirigibles. The crowd could clearly see the men scrambling back and forth on the structures below the gasbags in an attempt to balance the craft. On some days there were over 50,000 in attendance and it could take several hours for the crowd to make the long journey back to town.

The Wright brothers did not attend this air meet either; in fact, they had injunctions served to some participants in an attempt to stop them from flying. They felt that they owned the rights to controlled flight and that others were stealing from them. The injunction by the Wright brothers caused Curtiss to disable the airlerons on his Bleriot Monoplane. Thinking he could control his craft by rudder alone he took off but soon came down hard when he lost control as a gust of wind turned his craft on it's side.

One of many records set at this first US air meet was the longest cross country flight ever made to that time. Paraded in front of the packed grandstand was a sign reading "Paulhan will fly to Baldwin's Ranch (LA Arboretum) and return, 45 miles. Back in one hour". The crowd was incredulous at such a feat but soon, cries of "There he goes. He's making for Mount Wilson" were heard and later, as those with binoculars followed him amongst the clouds, they said "He must be at Whittier now" "In Los Angeles buildings and housetops wee points of vantage for fortunate ones with binoculars. All eyes were turned Paulhan-ward, for the new that he was on his way through space for the longest cross-country ride the world has ever known had spead like wildfire through the city. Whittier, Downey, Sierra Madre and every city and hamlet, every farm and every place of habitation was agog with the news. There were thousands of necks that ached and thousands of pairs of eyes that burned from the strain of watching the strange creature of the air in his mad flight. Arcadia was reached in thirty minutes. Around the Santa Anita racetrack Paulhan flew at an altitude of nearly 2,000 feet. Arcadia has seen many strange sights but never in all its past history has it been a witness to such an exhibition as that given by Paulhan. "Lucky" Baldwin died too soon. He was lucky in many ways but was not lucky enough to have lived until the time when the masters of the air added their mite to the fame of his race track by flying around the course."

"Ah, it was good sport", he exclaimed, as the little Frenchman jumped down from his seat. From the book, " The Dominguez Air Meet" by D.D. Hatfield.

On another day, Glenn Curtiss took off in a strong wind and wound up flying downwind past the grandstands at a fast clip. Curtiss said, "Running straight before the wind on the 'home stretch', it was before the grandstand that I was traveling at not less than sixty miles per hour, and at no other exhibition in the world, so far as I know, has such a speed been attained where thousands of people could witness it. Sixty miles per hour is about as fast as a man wants to travel by any method of locomotion." From the book, "The Dominguez Air Meet" by D.D. Hatfield.

Oddly absent from this first US air meet was local balloonist, Thadeous Lowe. Already famous for his balloon accensions during the Civil War and for building an incline in the mountains north of Pasadena, perhaps Lowe was too busy planning and building his own derigible to fly from Pasadena to Los Angeles. His plans never came to pass but there were airship attachment points on the roof of the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena. His grand daughter would become famous as a stunt flyer named "Pancho".

Charley Taylor, Roy Knabenshue, Walter Brookins and other pioneers of aviation are laid to rest in the 'Portal of the Folded Wings' at Valhalla Memorial Park in Burbank, CA.