Fort Worth’s driving park was also the place to watch early daredevils in the air

As the year 1911 began, the world was changing. On Jan. 12, people who were still getting accustomed to seeing gas-powered machines on the roads gathered at the driving park west of downtown to witness something even more astounding: gas-powered machines in the air.

The driving park had opened in 1905 north of where the Montgomery Ward store would be built in 1928. Although designed for equine events, the driving park became a showcase of technological innovation, 1905’s version of Texas Motor Speedway. In 1906 daredevil autoist Barney Oldfield set a world auto speed record for two miles at the driving park, averaging just under 60 mph.

Five years later an international team of aviation pioneers defied death and gravity during the Great Aviation Meet. Team members included Edmond Audemars (Swiss) and Rene Simon, Rene Barrier and Roland Garros (French), who made flights in both biplanes and monoplanes, including a Demoiselle, “the smallest heavier-than-air machine in the world” (weight: 243 pounds).

The flying circus performed in several Texas cities to big crowds: 5,000 spectators in Temple, 8,000 in Waco, 20,000 in Dallas, 25,000 in El Paso, 25,000 in Houston. It’s no wonder the crowds were huge. This was sure-’nuff daring-do by jaunty young men who were making it up as they went along.

Obviously in 1911 no one had a lot of experience in flying. The primitive airplanes, like their pilots, were unproven. High wind could blow a small, under-powered plane off course or into the ground. The pilots navigated largely by sight. Roland Garros had gotten lost in the clouds at the Dallas show and would be overtaken by darkness at the Houston show and forced to land 10 miles from where he took off.

On Jan. 12, 1911, Garros is credited with making the first powered flight from Fort Worth in his Bleriot XI Statue of Liberty monoplane.

The other pilots in the flying circus had refused to fly their flimsy planes that day because of winds of 25 mph. But Garros did not want to disappoint the crowd, which had been waiting for four hours to see his flying machine in action. He stared down the wind and went up in his monoplane, leveled off at 2,100 feet and flew 10 miles in seven minutes over the North Side.

On the second and final day of the meet, wind was even more of a problem than it had been on the first day. But Rene Simon (nicknamed the “Fool Flyer”) got his monoplane into the air, circled the driving park twice (even as his engine stopped once in mid-flight) and flew “only a few feet above the heads” of those in the crowd at the park.

Edmond Audemars’ airplane was airborne only briefly and was damaged while landing.

After the Great Aviation Meet, Roland Garros went on to set speed and altitude records. In 1913 he was the first person to fly nonstop across the Mediterranean Sea.

But during World War I Garros, flying for the French army in 1918, was shot down and killed by a German fighter pilot.

Today, First Flight Park at 2700 Mercedes Ave. near the site of the driving park commemorates Roland Garros’ Fort Worth milestone.

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