In October 2015, I wrote an article for the Star-Gazette about the Vin Fiz. Earlier this year, I obtained a photograph I had not seen before. So, I will add to my story.
“Vin Fiz” was the name of a new grape-flavored soft drink produced by the Armour Company of Chicago and was hailed as “refreshing and invigorating.” The new product, however, presented one significant marketing problem – it tasted terrible. The company needed an exceptional strategy if it were to sell its product and came up with a novel idea to boost its popularity.
In early January 1911, publisher William Randolph Hearst offered $50,000 to the fastest aviator to cross the country coast-to-coast within 30 days. With Hearst’s contest, Armour’s Vin Fiz had its gimmick. A young pilot, lacking funds, approached Armour, and its marketing team had an idea to use the stunt to promote its soft drink. That young man was Calbraith Perry Rogers.
Early in this contest, several aviators tried, but the task proved too difficult. Even nine years after the Wright brothers first successfully flew, airplanes were still considered impractical and a novelty. These early airplanes flew at levels lower than the tops of our hills, had no radios, could only fly in good weather, and broke down on almost every flight.
Three aviators intended to try the stunt. Hearst set no specific route – just to fly from ocean to ocean. Pilot Robert Fowler chose to fly from California to New York, while pilots Jimmy Ward and Vin Fiz’s Cal Rodgers were to fly from New York to California. Fowler took off in California on Sept. 11, Ward left Governor’s Island, New York, on Sept. 13, and Rodgers left Sheepshead Bay, New York, on Sept. 17. Rodgers’ aircraft sported the Vin Fiz trademark.
After crashing numerous times in the early days, Robert Fowler gave up. Jimmy Ward got lost many times and eventually ran out of money. Thirty-two-year-old Cal Rodgers had less than 60 hours of flying experience when he left New York on Sept. 17 in a Wright brothers’ type EX spruce, wire, and fabric bi-plane with a 35 horsepower, 4-cylinder engine. Cal’s plane followed a special Armour Vin Fiz train with tools and equipment. When Rodgers got to Elmira, he flew over the city looking for the Chemung County fairgrounds, as it was a flat place to land.
After circling Elmira and not finding the fairgrounds, he landed in farmer Edmund Miller’s open meadow (now Elmira Senior Living near Miller’s Pond) at 5:55 p.m. on Sept. 22. The Star-Gazette and the Elmira Advertiser said his landing was “graceful.” Rodgers was then taken “to the city” in an automobile to the Hotel Rathbun, where his crew had gathered. Rodgers’ crew roped off the airplane for the night with a lone watchman keeping guard.
The “new-to-me” photograph shows Rodgers leaving the meadow on Sept. 23. At 8 a.m., a heavy fog covered the neighborhood. Several thousand Elmirans arrived early to stake out the situation. The watchman woke up early after sleeping on the cold, wet ground. By 9 a.m., the meadow “looked like a county fair.” The watchman had a rough time keeping spectators from touching the Vin Fiz.
Rodgers was still in his pajamas at the hotel when he was told of the crowd. He had planned to leave Miller’s Pond around 10:11 a.m. The fog disappeared promptly at 10 a.m., and Rodgers arrived on the scene. He tested his aircraft, and everything seemed fine. The Star-Gazette reported that the plane "whizzed across the field toward the Erie tracks, flew over Miller’s pond, but could not get above the trees. He quickly landed. Spectators helped carry the plane back to where it started. Repairs were again in order. Hours went by; picnic lunches were eaten. Hours went by."
After minor repairs to three broken guy wires, things were looking better. Several thousand Elmirans watched Rodgers take off at 2:15 p.m. He was reported over Corning at 2:37 p.m.
Rodgers continued his journey through New York state, west to Illinois, south to Texas, and finally west toward California. Weather and machinery failure cost him any hope of winning the prize. He was in Oklahoma when the prize date expired, but he vowed to fulfill his contract with Armour.
The Vin Fiz was the first airplane ever seen in many of his stops. Elmira was slightly more sophisticated than the rest of the country because the city witnessed Lincoln Beachey’s bi-plane two months earlier.
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Cal Rodgers utilized 49 days to travel 3,350 miles. He stopped 69 times, crash-landed 19 times, and rebuilt the poor Vin Fiz four times. He ended the first transcontinental flight by landing in Tournament Park (now on the Cal Tech campus) in Pasadena, California.
Even though Rodgers made it to California, he felt his journey was incomplete until the Vin Fiz touched the Pacific Ocean. On Nov. 12, he left Long Beach but was forced to land. On Dec. 10, he tried and succeeded by landing on the beach and taxiing into the water.
A few months later, Rodgers was “chasing seagulls” when one bird became caught in the rudder wire, and while trying to extricate the bird, the wire broke, and the plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean, killing Rodgers. In 1934, the rebuilt Vin Fiz joined the collection of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
Calbraith Perry Rodgers was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1964.
– Elmira city historian Diane Janowski writes a monthly column.
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: How Elmira became a stop on an historic coast to coast flight in 1911
