DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm not addin' a word it didn't earn. Somewhere out here in Camp County, Texas, a Baptist minister looked up from the book of Ezekiel — wheels within wheels, living creatures, wings spread out — and thought: I can build that. That man was Burrell Cannon, born in 1848, and the story he set in motion is one of the stranger ones you'll find on any Texas roadside.
Cannon rounded up some investors right there in Pittsburg and they established the Ezekiel Airship Company with a purpose as serious as a sermon. They were going to build a flying machine drawn from scripture itself. The craft that took shape in a nearby machine shop had large, fabric-covered wings, and the whole thing was powered by an engine that turned four sets of paddles.
Four sets. Now you sit with that image for a moment. Late in 1902, right here at this site, that machine lifted off the ground.
Briefly airborne, the marker says — and I love that word briefly, because it's doing a lot of heavy lifting. But airborne is airborne. That happened in 1902, and the Wright brothers didn't make their flight until 1903.
History has a funny way of losing the thread on a story like this one. Cannon and his investors weren't done. They loaded that airship up and headed for the St.
Louis World's Fair in 1904, and somewhere along the way a storm found it first and destroyed it. Gone. So Cannon built a second model, and in 1913 that one crashed.
The Reverend Burrell Cannon, born 1848, died 1922, looked at the wreckage of the second machine and gave up the project. He'd seen the vision. He'd built the thing.
He'd flown it. The world just wasn't quite ready to remember.
What the marker says
Baptist minister and inventor Burrell Cannon (1848-1922) led some Pittsburg investors to establish the Ezekiel airship Company and build a craft described in the Biblical book of Ezekiel. The ship had large, fabric-covered wings powered by an engine that turned four sets of paddles. It was built in a nearby machine shop and was briefly airborne at this site late in 1902, a year before the Wright brothers first flew. Enroute to the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, the airship was destroyed by a storm. In 1913 a second model crashed, and the Rev. Cannon gave up the project. (1976)