Neta Snook The Ames Iowa Aviatrix Who Taught Amelia Earhart To Fly

 

Neta Snook (Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. July 13, 1921)

In the summer of 1920, newspapers around northern Illinois told people there was something at the Carroll County Fair worth traveling miles to see.

 

Her name was Neta Snook, and she flew airplanes.

 

The fair had the usual attractions. Livestock. Grain exhibits. Horse racing and free entertainment. But the advertisements promised something most people still hadn’t seen up close: an airplane taking off, circling the fairgrounds and coming back down.

 

Better yet, a woman was going to fly it.

 

“AEROPLANE FLIGHTS EVERY DAY,” announced the Pearl City News. It called Snook the “GIRL BIRD” and said the Mount Carroll native was known across the country. She was “one of the most daring of aviators, and would be worth going miles to see.”

 

Another advertisement for the fair was simpler. Beneath the giant words “THE CARROLL COUNTY FAIR” were the words “Aeroplane Flights,” followed by Neta Snook’s name.

 

For four days, August 24 through 27, Snook would take an airplane into the sky over the fairgrounds at Mount Carroll, Illinois. Airplanes were still strange enough to stop traffic and draw a crowd.

The Davenport Aviation School An Early Chapter In iowa Aviation

 

(Davenport Democrat and leader. July 2, 1917)

The Davenport Aviation School opened with a war plane, a crowd, and big plans on July 4, 1917.

 

Nine weeks later, its manager was dead, its test pilot was lying badly injured in a Davenport hospital, and the school was finished.

 

By the end of September, workers were hauling the company’s airplane-building machinery out of Davenport and moving it to Bettendorf. Not long after that, the business disappeared.

 

It had come apart almost as quickly as it had come together.

 

But for a short time in 1917, Davenport wasn’t just trying to teach people how to fly. A group of local businessmen, mechanics, and aviators thought they could build airplanes there. They opened a factory, hired draftsmen and aircraft workers, designed their own machines, and flew them over the city.

 

They even talked about military airplanes as the United States was entering World War I.

 

The best known of those machines was King Boreas.

 

It was built in Davenport and advertised as a 90-mile-an-hour “Army Tractor.” Newspapers called it a war plane. The company said more airplanes were already under construction.

Advertisement Holsman-Stevens Auto Company Des Moines

(Des Moines Register. June 23, 1918)

Interesting advertisement for the King Auto from Holsman-Stevens Auto Company in Des Moines. It has a tie in to the races at the Des Moines Speedway. It give a good look at how automobiles had changed from 1894 to 1918.

Curtiss Flyer Exhibited At The Des Moines Corn Exposition

 

Glenn Curtiss in his flying machine (Des Moines Register. December 3, 1909)

Des Moines was about to get a look at something most Iowans had never seen up close: a real flying machine.

Glenn H. Curtiss, one of the biggest names in the new and slightly crazy world of aviation, was sending one of his aeroplanes to the Corn Exposition. The machine was expected to arrive by express and would be assembled inside the Coliseum.

And this wasn't just any airplane.

Curtiss had recently become an international celebrity after competing against some of Europe's best aviators at Rheims, France. He won the Gordon Bennett aviation trophy there, beating Frenchman Louis Blériot in a 20-kilometer race by only a few seconds.

The Des Moines exhibition was handled by A. P. Warner of Beloit, Wisconsin, an aviator associated with Curtiss. Warner was expected to explain the machine, answer questions and show curious Iowans how this strange new invention actually worked.

There was even talk of flying it.

That part depended on the weather. Curtiss machines could fly in winds that would keep some other early aeroplanes on the ground, but December in Iowa wasn't exactly ideal flying weather. If conditions cooperated, organizers hoped to arrange a short outdoor flight.

Sioux City Brewing Company Heidel-Brau Beer

 

(The Sioux City Journal. July 12, 1914)

The Sioux City Brewing Company opened in 1899, founded by Joseph Baumgartner and Abel Anderson. Its brick brewery became part of a growing industrial city filled with packinghouses, railroads, factories, and plenty of thirsty workers.

Its beers included Bavarian Export, Extra Pale Select, Western Brew and Alpen Rose. By 1914, newspaper ads were also pushing Heidel-Brau, promoted as “The Royal German Beer.” The name would survive long after the original brewery was gone.

Ownership changed around 1908, when George Kingsbury and F. L. Eaton bought the company. They took over at a tricky time to be in the beer business. Iowa’s temperance movement was getting stronger, and brewers and saloon owners were facing an ever-growing pile of rules.

Sioux City Brewing tried to work around them.

One answer was Justus Beer, a low-alcohol brew made much like regular lager, except fermentation was stopped early. It contained only one-half of one percent alcohol. Even that wasn’t simple. A dispute over Justus helped produce an Iowa Supreme Court case in 1910.

Still, the beer kept flowing.

By the 1910s, Sioux City Brewing was selling several brands and distributing its products beyond Sioux City. Heidel-Brau advertisements from 1914 show a brewery still actively fighting for customers.

Then Iowa pulled the plug.

Statewide prohibition arrived in 1916, ending legal beer production. Sioux City Brewing shut down, and its brewery went quiet.

For the moment, anyway.

The company—and Heidel-Brau—would eventually get another life after Prohibition.

Early Racing At The Boone Dirt Race Track

 

(Des Moines Register. June 22, 1916)

This is the start of a history of early dirt track racing in Iowa. It’s rough, incomplete, but it gives some good information on the dirt track in Boone.

It contains the scoop on three races. One in 1910, and two in 1916. The purses in 1916 were huge for the time. As much as $35,000 in today’s dollars.

There were other tracks at the Des Moines fairgrounds and in Sioux City. I hope to have more on them later. If you have info to share, please leave it in the comments.

Dirt track racing in Boone goes back to at least 1910.

 

The place was North Side Driving Park, near what is now 22nd and Linn streets. It was a half-mile dirt oval connected to the Boone Driving Park and Fair Association. Horses and harness racers used the grounds before automobiles came along. Like a lot of fairground tracks in those days, it didn’t take long before somebody decided to see how fast a car could get around it.

 

By the summer of 1910, they were racing for real.

 

And people showed up.

 

The Evening Times-Republican reported on August 10, 1910, that around 10,000 spectators had watched automobile and motorcycle races in Boone the previous afternoon. Boone itself had only a little over 10,000 people.

Boone Iowa Race Track

(The Des Moines Register. July 2, 1916)

A scene at the Boone race track. A. Striergel is driving a Stafford car, with a Duesenberg close behind. 

Track manage, Joe Lowrey, said he had fourteen drivers signed up for the season, and was expecting several more to join in. Prizes were $1100 and $750 for one event alone.

The track has been in operation since 1910, and several dirt track records had been set there.