It was April 1897, and something was in the air in North Texas. Were they airships?

Many people are familiar with the report that on April 17, 1897, a spaceship crashed in Aurora in Wise County. But that report was not the only or even the first of its kind in north Texas that month.

For example, on April 14, three days before the Aurora sighting, newspapers reported that an airship, described as cigar like with wings and a searchlight, was seen in Weatherford, Corsicana and Cresson.

In fact, in April Texas newspapers also reported airship sightings in Stephenville, Greenville, Granbury, Austin, Ladonia, Cameron, Ennis, West, Wortham and, yes, Fort Worth.

Newspapers wrote hundreds of words about the sightings, cited dozens of purported eyewitnesses.

Some of these reports came from people of good standing with a reputation for veracity: bankers, railroad men, law enforcement officials.

Eyewitness descriptions of the airships were similar: Sightings usually occurred at night — cigar-shaped craft with motors, wings and a bright headlight. With the exception of the Aurora crash, airship occupants were human. Eyewitnesses were not harmed.

In Farmersville a Mr. Hildreth said the three occupants of the airship he saw were singing “Nearer, My God, to Thee” and handing out temperance tracts.

Farmersville City Marshal Brown said the airship seemed to have on board “something resembling a large Newfoundland dog.” Brown said he thought he heard the occupants of the airship speaking Spanish.

In Waxahachie, W. H. Patterson said that in the airship he saw, a woman seemed to be powering the craft with a device resembling a sewing machine.

Some witnesses claimed even to have talked with occupants of an airship, including two witnesses who said an airship occupant identified himself as “Wilson” and told them he had lived in Fort Worth.

In Fort Worth, no less a personage than civic leader James Jones Jarvis was reported to have seen “the much advertised airship” land three miles north of town near his property. Furthermore, passengers of the airship were said to have included the assistant secretary of war and his wife.

Woodford Brooks, an official of the Poly streetcar company, encountered an airship in today’s Trinity Park and chatted with the pilot, who told Brooks that the airship, with 13 aboard, was bound for Mexico City.

On April 23 the Fort Worth Register reported that a “perfectly sober” W. T. Gray of Fort Worth had seen an airship while fishing at Harmon’s Lake north of town.

Walter M. Hanney of Fort Worth, a railroad conductor, saw an airship as he sat on his porch on the night of April 16.

Also on the night of April 16, Jack Farley of Denison was in Fort Worth “and swears by all that is good and holy that he saw the airship sailing over the town.”

After April, reported sightings in north Texas decreased sharply.

Reading the newspaper reports of the time results in more questions than answers. Just what was at work here — real airships, hoaxes, the power of suggestion?

All of the above?

Michael Busby’s book Solving the 1897 Airship Mystery theorizes that some of the sightings were genuine: Airships (plural) built by a handful of inventors (including former Fort Worth resident Hiram Wilson) were flown until the airships were destroyed in accidents.

Keep watching the skies.

Mike Nichols blogs about Fort Worth history at www.hometownbyhandlebar.com.

This story was originally published August 8, 2019 at 5:32 PM with the headline "It was April 1897, and something was in the air in North Texas. Were they airships?."