This Week In Pittsburgh History: Aviator Calbraith Perry Rodgers Completes the World’s First Transcontinental Flight

Ayoung Pittsburgh aviator flew through several obstacles and became the first airman to complete the world’s first transcontinental flight on Sept. 17, 1911.

Calbraith Perry Rodgers Jr. was born on Jan 12, 1879, to a family with a long history in the Navy. Rodgers grew up in Shadyside with his mother, Maria Chambers, and grandparents. His father died five months before his birth during the Indian Wars in the Wyoming Territory.

Rodgers got scarlet fever as a child, which made him partially deaf. He still embraced adventure and enjoyed sailing and racing horses and cars.

Rodgers’ love for aviation was born in the spring of 1911 when he visited the Wright Flying School in Dayton, Ohio, and saw a plane for the first time.

He enrolled in the school and, when he was denied his request to take a solo flight due to lack of experience, he purchased his own training plane. He made his first solo flight on June 12, 1911. Rodgers passed the Federation Aeronautique Internationale’s flying examination on Aug. 7, becoming the 49th licensed aviator in the world.

A few weeks later, Rodgers entered a flying competition for the Hearst Prize, which offered $50,000 to the first person to fly coast to coast in fewer than 30 days. Rodgers took off from Sheepshead Bay in Long Island, New York on Sept. 17, 1911.

Rodgers first landed in Middletown, New York, but the plane experienced extensive damage during takeoff the next day. The journey continued to have setbacks — two engine explosions, more than 15 crashes, and as many as 70 rough landings — that delayed his quest.

Rodgers fought through the challenges, however, and landed in Long Beach, California on Dec. 10, 1911, completing the first transcontinental flight. Since Rodgers took 49 days to reach the West Coast, he didn’t win the Hearst Prize.

Rodgers’ fame, however, was short-lived; his plane flew into a flock of birds a few months later at an air show, and he was killed in the crash.

He was buried in Allegheny Cemetery and in 1964, posthumously inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame. A model of the plane he flew in his transcontinental flight, the Vin Fiz, named for the new grape soda his sponsor Armour Meat-Packing Co. was promoting, hangs overhead in an exhibit in the Heinz History Center.