Meet Glenn Hammond Curtiss

By Kris Grant

Coronado might never have been the Birthplace of Naval Aviation if not for the wonderfully inventive mind of a rather introverted man from upstate New York – Glenn Hammond Curtiss. As most Coronadans know, Glenn H. Curtiss was the guy who set up a school in Coronado in 1911 at what is now North Island Naval Air Station and trained the first naval aviators.

I learned so much about the prodigious career of this man by visiting his hometown of Hammondsport at the southernmost point of Lake Keuka, one of the 11 Finger Lakes.

In Hammondsport, this native son is a local hero, and I soon found photographs of his accomplishments adorning the walls of the Park Inn restaurant, and images of him on the interior walls of the local ice cream parlor and on murals outside the Hammondsport Grocery Store.

But the true gem of this town is the Curtiss Museum, where Richard Leisenring, the curator for the past 18 years, took me through Curtiss’ life story. The museum contains a priceless collection relating to early aviation and regional history, and traveling exhibits such as the current “Art at War,” showcasing the art of squadron insignias painted on fuselages of early airplanes. It has a 75-seat theater, large open area for special events and a museum store. Visitors are welcome to visit the Restoration Shop, talk with volunteer craftsman and watch them work on historic aircraft.

Glenn Curtiss’ first flying boat, 1912.

Born in 1878, Glenn Curtiss was the grandson of a Methodist minister and his wife who came to Hammondsport from Canada in 1876. Glenn’s father, Frank, went to work as a harness maker; his mother, Lua, was an artist who loved painting the “glen” outside the village that was largely owned by the Hammond family. There are beautiful glens in the Hammondsport area, including those with waterfalls at nearby Watkins State Park. Lua named her baby boy after the Hammond glen (she added an “n’).

Glenn Curtiss liked bicycling from an early age and by 19 owned his own bike shop in Hammondsport.

When Glenn was five, his father died and by age 10, Glenn was contributing mightily to the family’s income, delivering groceries, herding cows, raising and selling rabbits. Glenn’s younger sister Rutha lost her hearing from a bout with meningitis and her mother enrolled her in a school for the deaf in Rochester; Glenn divided his time between Rochester and Hammondsport, where, after graduating from eighth grade, he worked full time, providing the majority of support to his sister, mother and grandmother.

His love of bicycles began in 1893 while living in Rochester. He first learned to ride on a high-wheeled bicycle while working at the Eastman Dry Plate and Film Company (later Eastman Kodak). He later bought a lower, safer bike and worked as a Western Union Telegraph messenger, frequently racing with other messengers, making occasional 70-mile weekend jaunts to Hammondsport. At the Eastman plant, Curtiss’s mechanical abilities became evident: he invented a stencil machine and later a rudimentary camera.

Around age 16, Glenn began working at the local bike store on the village square in Hammondsport. He loved bikes, both racing and repairing them.

By age 19 he needed to generate a larger income, as he had fallen in love with a local girl, Lena Nuff. They married in 1898, when Glenn turned 20. In 1899 he opened his own bike shop. The Curtisses had two children, but their first child died in infancy and their second wasn’t born until almost a decade later.

Curtiss posed for early ads promoting his bicycles.

A Curtiss Motorcycle was powered by his self-designed engine. Curtiss revs up with the 20th century

As the 20th century roared into being, so did Curtiss! In 1900, he began experimenting with motorcycles, building the fastest machines available, using a lightweight combustion engine of his own design. In 1902 he founded the Curtiss Manufacturing Company and began to market his motorbikes commercially. By 1903, he was crushing the famous Indian motorbikes and Harley Davidsons in competitions. At the same time, he was headed up in the air. In 1904, balloonist Tom Baldwin created a small motorized pedal-powered airship, known today as a dirigible. Then he made a larger one for other companies and decided he would build his own airship. He turned to Curtiss to help him power it. The “California Arrow” used a Curtiss seven-horsepower Hercules motorcycle engine to propel it. When it made a controlled circular-flight in Oakland, California, the Army became interested, and purchased the airship for $10,000.

Curtiss, by nature, was a collaborator, who was interested in the advancement of technology first; financial gain was secondary. In May 1906, Curtiss, with Baldwin, met the Wright Brothers at an air show in Toledo and attempted to interest them in one of his engines, offering it to them for free. But the fiercely independent Wrights declined his offer.

Later, the Wrights, who filed a broad patent on all types of air flight following their Kitty Hawk flight, took on all competitors (chief among them Curtiss), in court with costly and time-consuming litigation. On Jan. 7, 1907, Curtiss set an all-time high-speed record of 136.36 miles per hour on a 40-horsepower, V-8 powered motorcycle in Ormond Beach, Florida. That’s when newspapers dubbed him “the fastest man on Earth.”

Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the first telephone in 1876 and founded AT&T in 1885, had a wide range of scientific interests. When he became interested in “heavier than air” craft, he was 60 years old and his wife, Mabel, urged him to recruit younger men to join him in his work. Thus, Bell came calling on Curtiss in 1907, inviting him to join his newly formed Aerial Experiment Association (AEA). The AEA also included Army Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, who recognized that

The Curtiss Museum displays a series of Glenn Curtiss’ aircraft, including actual models and replicas.

air flight would have a profound effect on the army’s future, and Frederick Walker Baldwin, a hydrofoil and aviation pioneer. The group set up shop in Hammondsport and over the next two years produced four aircrafts, each improving on the design of the previous one. The third design was the June Bug and on July 4, 1908, Curtiss flew the plane 5,080 feet to capture the Scientific American Trophy and its cash award. This was considered the first publicly announced, officially witnessed “heavier-than-air” flight in America and shot Curtiss into further fame.

“Glenn Curtiss did more to advance aviation than anyone in history,” Leisenring said. The Wright Brothers were far more secretive about their flights, attempting to patent every design. The brothers would allow other pilots to proceed with their designs if they paid them licensing fees of an initial $1,000 and $500 for each flight thereafter. Court cases between the Wrights and Curtiss dragged on and on. “The Albany Flyer” by John Gould commemorates Glenn Curtiss’ 150-mile public flight along the Hudson from Albany, NY, to Manhattan. Curtiss’ feat was the first true cross-country flight in the United States.

Glenn Curtiss (with hat) and his first class of military pilots, from left Lt. J.C. Walker, U.S. Army; Lt. P.W.Beck, U.S. Army, Lt.Theodore G “Spuds” Ellyson, U.S. Navy and Lt. G.E. Kelly, U.S. Army.

Curtiss recognized that the Navy would be a good candidate to purchase his planes. On Nov. 14, 1910, Curtiss’ demonstration pilot, Eugene Ely, flew off a makeshift platform set up on the deck of a Navy cruiser, the USS Birmingham.

The Navy then expressed an interest in purchasing planes from Curtiss but part of the deal was for him to teach Navy officers to fly. So at the end of 1910, Curtiss set up a “winter encampment” in Coronado to teach Army and Navy officers to fly. Here he trained Lt. Theodore “Spuds” Ellyson, who became U.S. Naval Aviator No. 1, and three Army officers. Curtiss arranged a three-year lease at $1 a year from John Spreckels for barren property, directly across the street from where he began his flying school and furthered his technical aeronautical innovations. He built a bungalowstyle home for $7,000 for his family and his home office in 1910. Jami and Chander Burgos, owners of Glenn Curtiss’ former home at 301 Alameda Boulevard, received the GEM Award (Going-theExtra-Mile) for historic preservation of the “airplane house” in 2014 from the Coronado Historical Association. They had answered an ad for a bungalow home that was priced as a “tear down” and only through research did they discover that the home was the former residence of “The Father of Naval Aviation.” I wonder if they know that Curtiss had his home in Hammondsport remodeled at the same time he built his home in Coronado, adding to his Hammondsport home a similar “airplane-style” upstairs office with windows on all sides. He referred to it as his “Thinkorium.” It was the only part of the Curtiss home that survived a fire in the 1960s. It was salvaged and is now contained within the Curtiss Museum, housing pieces of Curtiss’ original furnishings including a large globe plus other items from his family homes.

Through that winter, Curtiss developed a pontoon aircraft that enabled water landings and takeoffs, and on Jan. 26, 1911, he flew the first seaplane from U.S. waters.

Of particular interest to the Navy, Lt. Ely also landed his Curtiss pusher on a makeshift platform mounted on the rear deck of the battleship, USS Pennsylvania, marking the first arrester-cable landing on a ship. This “tail hook” technology continues to be used by the Navy today.

At what is now North Island Naval Air Station, Curtiss made his first amphibious demonstration by taking off and landing on both land and water. In July 1911, Curtiss sold the Navy their first aircraft, the A-1 Triad, which was also the first amphibious aircraft.

That same year, Curtiss was granted U. S. Pilot’s License No. 1 from the Aero Club of America, while Wilbur Wright was No. 5. (Sorry, Wilbur, the licenses were granted in alphabetical order!)

When Wilbur Wright died on May 30, 1912 of typhoid fever, Orville Wright blamed Curtiss, saying that the exhausting travels and stress of the legal battles likely suppressed his brother’s immune system, which led to him contracting typhus.

Finally, with the outbreak of World War I, the U.S. government had had enough; it stepped in and seized control of the patents, opening them up to the entire public, and paying Orville Wright-Martin, (later Wright Aviation) and Curtiss Aviation $1 million each. In an ironic twist, Wright Aviation and Curtiss Aeroplane Company merged in 1929 to form Curtiss-Wright Corporation, which remains in business today. The company’s website describes it as “a diversified global provider of highly engineered products and services of motion control, flow control, and metal treatment.”

The actual ‘airplane loft’ second floor of Glenn Curtiss’ Hammondsport home was salvaged from a 1960’s fire and is on display at the Curtiss Museum. It is remarkably similar to the second floor of the GEM-award winning Curtiss home in Coronado.

In 1916, as military orders increased in lockstep with the impending world war, Curtiss moved the company headquarters and manufacturing center to Buffalo, which allowed for far greater access to supplies, transportation networks and an employee base.

After the First World War, Curtiss turned his efforts away from aviation. “It wasn’t just that the military’s need for planes had gone away,” said Leisenring, “Every aspect of aviation had become industrialized to sell products to consumers. Glenn liked to roll up his sleeves and as his company grew he had less and less opportunity to do that, requiring him to be a businessman. But he was a tinkerer at heart.”

Curtiss’ curiosity led him in many directions. Like many New Yorkers, he enjoyed trips to Florida, especially to escape the economic pressures of World War I and its aftermath. Curtiss enjoyed hunting and fishing and was known to snare an alligator or two. He decided to go into land development, buying a large tract of land and creating three pre-planned communities: Opa Loca, Hialeah and Miami Springs. Each community had individual architectural themes. They were successful, as people were out traveling by car after the war and a land boom started in Florida.

Curtiss built a movie studio in Miami Springs. “Glenn was into everything,” Leisenring said. “The Miami Springs Studio opened its doors in 1922 and the first year brought in $600,000 in revenue. Over the next four years 30 films were made at the studio, with noted filmmaker D.W. Griffith working there along with several stars of the silent screen.” Curtiss also built boats; his “Miss Miami” held a water speed record for several years. A smaller motorboat that he had built in 1922 by Air Ships, Inc. in Hammondsport is on display at the museum. Curtiss motored around Keuka Lake on it where he spent summers.

Everything took a turn for the worst in 1926. Leisenring said, “There was the great Miami hurricane -- a Class 5 hurricane that hit his three communities. It was a one-two punch, as the land boom started to turn. Inflating land prices discouraged home buying, and then the hurricane hit. The destruction was devastating.”

Leisenring said an estimated 410 to 800 people were killed (migrant farm workers made an accurate count difficult), 6,000 more were injured and 13,000 homes were destroyed. The estimated $1 million in property damages would equal approximately $144 billion in today’s dollars. Curtiss was still a millionaire, and he now focused on building some of the world’s first recreational vehicles, in partnership with his younger half-brother, Carl Adams. Back in the 1890s, Glenn’s mother had remarried, then divorced. Carl came to live with Glenn in Hammondsport when he was a preteen. “Carl admired Glenn and was always in the background,” Leisenring said. “Likewise, Glenn doted on his brother and helped him establish the Adams Motor Bungalow Company in 1917, which continued through 1923.”

In 1928, Curtiss and his brother worked with Carl Fisher, a partner in the Indianapolis Speedway, and elevated the designs into luxurious “Curtiss Aerocars” with company headquarters in Florida. Most often the Aerocars were pulled by rumble-seat coupes, with custom design hitches.

At the time of his death, Curtiss was in the process of creating the first “Safari Park” in America and had hired a German architect to create the first designs.

Throughout his life, Curtiss was generous in spirit and monetary gifts, Leisenring noted. “He didn’t like being labeled a millionaire, which he saw as a burden, making him a target for lawsuits and for people asking for handouts. Instead, he liked to encourage other inventors and give them money to get started.” Curtiss did a lot to help former employees after the war. “When he closed his Hammondsport plant, he would quietly pay fuel bills and mortgages for many of his former employees and never asked to be repaid,” Leisenring said. “He invited other businesses to move to Hammondsport and take over his factories. The entire Finger Lakes region’s economy was devastated for quite a while, as Prohibition had also shut down the wineries. Curtiss helped several people reestablish themselves in Florida, where he also built an electric power plant in Miami Springs and sold it to the city for $1.

Curtiss died July 23, 1930 of complications following an appendectomy. He was only 52. Who knows what he might have invented had he lived another 20 years. After World War I, Curtiss (left), turned his attention to other inventions, like the first fifth wheel RVs in the United States.

9 a.m. – 5 p.m. daily, May 1 – Oct. 31; 10 a.m. – 4p.m. Nov. 1 – April 30, Closed on Easter, Thanksgiving Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day

$13.50, general; $12, seniors, 65+, $10, ages 7 – 18; 6 and under, free.

Address: 8419 State Route 54, Hammondsport, New York.

Virginia Dare was the boat that Glenn Curtiss had built in Hammondsport for the many summers he spent on Lake Keuka.