Volume 052-1 - January 1998 (8 pages)

COLFAX MAN FLIES IN A NEW MACHINE Gyroscopic Arrangement Said to Be the Real Thing in Aviating. MADE LONG TRIAL OF APPARATUS SUNDAY Flew From Cape Horn and Was Able to Return in Good Shape. Down at Colfax they boast of a fullfledged aviator, who has made a flight ~withuut breaking his neck—and now she people of the junction town are Icoking forward to greater things. It ls even reported that a frlend of the famous Wright brothers has becn at Colfax to learn more about this new machine, which is termed a gyroscope. Said lust nigi:i’s Bee: COLFAX, Placer Co, Aug. 20.— For many years Lyman Gilmore of this Place has’been making n study of aeroplanes, and at the same time study_ ing the fights of different birds, with an‘idea of making a successful mode! of an airship. Sunday afternoon after inviting a number of his friends out to <ape Horn, Gilmore started his aeroslane from the top of the Horn and made a flight of over 3,000 feet at an average height of 250 feet, landing within a few feet of his starting place A short Might of 600 feet at an aver‘se height of 50 feet was also mado, woving beyond o doubt that the mahine is thoroughly practical and easiiy The machine in flight readily renonded to the steering gear, to raise ‘r lower as well as circle to the right av teft. All that remains now to pertect the machine js ta install some relable motive power. In the trial flight he machine flew at an average speed f 43 miles per hour. It is so perfectly mlunced that should anything happen to it It will gradually glide to the earth and alight with easc. The airship Is of the aeroplane type. a © and original Ideas, which makes It non-capsizable and en ables tt to fly perfectly level at all tines, this being accomplished by an lectrically driven gyroscope, operated »y 2 storage battery, which is kepr sharged to its full capacity by a secret alectric Mfluence. The seruplane is provided with three planes, one main and two small one.i, ind may be arranged as 2 double plan» if desired. As an assurance against accidents Gilmore has applied a series of galls, which can be placed in such a position as to keep the ship in motion, as with a sea-going vessel, and made to tack against a very strong breeze. Owing to the perfect construction of the ship it is impossible for it to alight wn the ground with force sufficient tv do any damuge, or, even jar the occupants, and the operator is enabled t1 hold the ship stationary in the alr by the propeliors, which automatically lower the ship or raise It at will. A company of locat capitalists is forming for the purpose of bullding « ship and donating the necessary amount to vonstruct a ship for demonatration as well as market purposes Those who were present and witnexsed the Might were Mr. and Mrs Fred Marvin of the Marvin hotel; D. . Gillen of the Gillen hotel; Captain momas Hooper, owner of the Annie Lsurfe mine; Pr. Broome of Spokane, Washington; “Rillie’ Nealtl, a retire? capitalist from Oakland; C. G. Bell, local capitaltst: D. McPhall, a business man from Sacramento and Earle Beattie, deputy city treasurer of Oakland. nanipulated. Gilmore never spoke of the flight described in the Grass Valley Union on August 21, 1909; despite headline, it’s unlikely he was aboard this glider. No reporter was present, and Gilmore is describing the machine he hoped to build. dated the Wright brothers, Flindt does remember Gilmore telling him that they took place not far from Colfax, possibly in 1896. According to Gilmore, the plane had a steam engine and wasn’t capable of anything more than level flight. No matter what Gilmore and his friends did, they were unable to get that first plane to climb. It took off from an inclined ramp with skids. The plane had, not wheels, but skids. “From what I can understand,” Flindt says, “the plane would take off with the engine wide open, down those skids, and when it came to the end, the speed of the plane would be enough to cause it to go into the air and fly. They had quite a bit of trouble with that because, from what I can gather, in those days the countryside there was largely carpeted with trees. One of their problems was finding and clearing landing sites. They finally got the idea that they could make a long enough flight to fly down the canyon, fly over Colfax, and then come back to one of their landing places.” When Flindt asked why the -_ plane couldn’t climb, Gilmore explained that the steam engines of the day and the boilers and furnaces and everything else required weighed too much and produced too little power for the amount of weight of the engine. NCHS Bulletin January 1998 However, weight problems wasn’t why Gilmore and his friends stopped experimenting with their plane. Chalk that up to pilot error. “One day the guy who was flying,” Gilmore told Flindt. “made a mistake in landing and washed the plane out.” Apparently the consensus of the men involved, which may have included a financial backer, was that it was a lost cause, that they could never achieve anything more than level flight. It is Flindt’s understanding that Gilmore himself never actually flew the plane; that task and adventure went to a much lighter man. Historians who have worked on piecing together Gilmore’s life and accomplishments record that Gilmore spoke of visions, of looking into the future. Flindt remembers the same thing. One night which stands out in particular took place during a drive from Auburn to Grass Valley. “Because it was a cold night, we kept the windows closed and I’m telling you, that guy had a b.o. [body odor] that would stand as a Standard for the world,” Flindt laughs. ‘“That’s when he told me that in a vision he saw himself walking underground along a ridge near where we were driving. He said that there was an old river channel there, that it was rich in gold, not wildly rich, not like some of the very best, but he said it was good.” Money played a key role in a something else Gilmore told Flindt. At one point, Gilmore asked if Flindt knew someone who lived in Nevada City at the time. When Flindt indicated he did, Gilmore said, “I happen to know that there is $60,000 in gold buried under their driveway, just buried there, just for safekeeping.” “Why doesn’t somebody go there during the night and dig it up?” Flindt asked. “Well,” Gilmore replied. “I think the people are very careful that someone is there all the time.” Over 40 years later, the question remains: has the gold been removed? Does it exist? Flindt doesn’t know. As he says, “Gilmore was a strange guy. He was, as with many geniuses, seemingly at times on the verge of being—of slipping over the lines from what you might call a person who was rational and totally aware of their immediate surroundings, into—he seemed to be on the verge of slipping into the type of person who is withdrawn into a world of fantasy.” Despite that, Gilmore managed to deal with most of the problems he encountered in life, in particular a long-running feud. “He was always at war with his nephew,” Flindt says. “This war was about the mine at Iowa Hill, a hydraulic mine. Gilmore claimed that the nephew was always trying to get it away from him. One day he heard the nephew’s attorney say, “We could do what we want with Lyman, if we could only get that typewriter away from him.’ He was always writing letters on this rickety old portable typewriter, and they apparently were effective, because he kept the mine as long as I knew him.” Copyright © 1998 Max H. Flindt and Vella Munn 3

COLFAX MAN FLIES IN A NEW MACHINE Gyroscopic Arrangement Said to Be the Real Thing in Aviating. MADE LONG TRIAL OF APPARATUS SUNDAY Flew From Cape Horn and Was Able to Return in Good Shape. Down at Colfax they boast of a fullfledged aviator, who has made a flight ~withuut breaking his neck—and now she people of the junction town are Icoking forward to greater things. It ls even reported that a frlend of the famous Wright brothers has becn at Colfax to learn more about this new machine, which is termed a gyroscope. Said lust nigi:i’s Bee: COLFAX, Placer Co, Aug. 20.— For many years Lyman Gilmore of this Place has’been making n study of aeroplanes, and at the same time study_ ing the fights of different birds, with an‘idea of making a successful mode! of an airship. Sunday afternoon after inviting a number of his friends out to <ape Horn, Gilmore started his aeroslane from the top of the Horn and made a flight of over 3,000 feet at an average height of 250 feet, landing within a few feet of his starting place A short Might of 600 feet at an aver‘se height of 50 feet was also mado, woving beyond o doubt that the mahine is thoroughly practical and easiiy The machine in flight readily renonded to the steering gear, to raise ‘r lower as well as circle to the right av teft. All that remains now to pertect the machine js ta install some relable motive power. In the trial flight he machine flew at an average speed f 43 miles per hour. It is so perfectly mlunced that should anything happen to it It will gradually glide to the earth and alight with easc. The airship Is of the aeroplane type. a © and original Ideas, which makes It non-capsizable and en ables tt to fly perfectly level at all tines, this being accomplished by an lectrically driven gyroscope, operated »y 2 storage battery, which is kepr sharged to its full capacity by a secret alectric Mfluence. The seruplane is provided with three planes, one main and two small one.i, ind may be arranged as 2 double plan» if desired. As an assurance against accidents Gilmore has applied a series of galls, which can be placed in such a position as to keep the ship in motion, as with a sea-going vessel, and made to tack against a very strong breeze. Owing to the perfect construction of the ship it is impossible for it to alight wn the ground with force sufficient tv do any damuge, or, even jar the occupants, and the operator is enabled t1 hold the ship stationary in the alr by the propeliors, which automatically lower the ship or raise It at will. A company of locat capitalists is forming for the purpose of bullding « ship and donating the necessary amount to vonstruct a ship for demonatration as well as market purposes Those who were present and witnexsed the Might were Mr. and Mrs Fred Marvin of the Marvin hotel; D. . Gillen of the Gillen hotel; Captain momas Hooper, owner of the Annie Lsurfe mine; Pr. Broome of Spokane, Washington; “Rillie’ Nealtl, a retire? capitalist from Oakland; C. G. Bell, local capitaltst: D. McPhall, a business man from Sacramento and Earle Beattie, deputy city treasurer of Oakland. nanipulated.

Gilmore never spoke of the flight described in the Grass Valley Union on August 21, 1909; despite headline, it’s unlikely he was aboard this glider. No reporter was present, and Gilmore is describing the machine he hoped to build. dated the Wright brothers, Flindt does remember Gilmore telling him that they took place not far from Colfax, possibly in 1896. According to Gilmore, the plane had a steam engine and wasn’t capable of anything more than level flight. No matter what Gilmore and his friends did, they were unable to get that first plane to climb. It took off from an inclined ramp with skids. The plane had, not wheels, but skids. “From what I can understand,” Flindt says, “the plane would take off with the engine wide open, down those skids, and when it came to the end, the speed of the plane would be enough to cause it to go into the air and fly. They had quite a bit of trouble with that because, from what I can gather, in those days the countryside there was largely carpeted with trees. One of their problems was finding and clearing landing sites. They finally got the idea that they could make a long enough flight to fly down the canyon, fly over Colfax, and then come back to one of their landing places.” When Flindt asked why the -_ plane couldn’t climb, Gilmore explained that the steam engines of the day and the boilers and furnaces and everything else required weighed too much and produced too little power for the amount of weight of the engine. NCHS Bulletin January 1998 However, weight problems wasn’t why Gilmore and his friends stopped experimenting with their plane. Chalk that up to pilot error. “One day the guy who was flying,” Gilmore told Flindt. “made a mistake in landing and washed the plane out.” Apparently the consensus of the men involved, which may have included a financial backer, was that it was a lost cause, that they could never achieve anything more than level flight. It is Flindt’s understanding that Gilmore himself never actually flew the plane; that task and adventure went to a much lighter man. Historians who have worked on piecing together Gilmore’s life and accomplishments record that Gilmore spoke of visions, of looking into the future. Flindt remembers the same thing. One night which stands out in particular took place during a drive from Auburn to Grass Valley. “Because it was a cold night, we kept the windows closed and I’m telling you, that guy had a b.o. [body odor] that would stand as a Standard for the world,” Flindt laughs. ‘“That’s when he told me that in a vision he saw himself walking underground along a ridge near where we were driving. He said that there was an old river channel there, that it was rich in gold, not wildly rich, not like some of the very best, but he said it was good.” Money played a key role in a something else Gilmore told Flindt. At one point, Gilmore asked if Flindt knew someone who lived in Nevada City at the time. When Flindt indicated he did, Gilmore said, “I happen to know that there is $60,000 in gold buried under their driveway, just buried there, just for safekeeping.” “Why doesn’t somebody go there during the night and dig it up?” Flindt asked. “Well,” Gilmore replied. “I think the people are very careful that someone is there all the time.” Over 40 years later, the question remains: has the gold been removed? Does it exist? Flindt doesn’t know. As he says, “Gilmore was a strange guy. He was, as with many geniuses, seemingly at times on the verge of being—of slipping over the lines from what you might call a person who was rational and totally aware of their immediate surroundings, into—he seemed to be on the verge of slipping into the type of person who is withdrawn into a world of fantasy.” Despite that, Gilmore managed to deal with most of the problems he encountered in life, in particular a long-running feud. “He was always at war with his nephew,” Flindt says. “This war was about the mine at Iowa Hill, a hydraulic mine. Gilmore claimed that the nephew was always trying to get it away from him. One day he heard the nephew’s attorney say, “We could do what we want with Lyman, if we could only get that typewriter away from him.’ He was always writing letters on this rickety old portable typewriter, and they apparently were effective, because he kept the mine as long as I knew him.” Copyright © 1998 Max H. Flindt and Vella Munn 3