The Baysdorfers, Nebraska’s first aviators

By David L. Bristow

 

When Charles Baysdorfer prepared for takeoff near Waterloo, Nebraska, not only was he piloting a homebuilt biplane on its maiden flight, but he hadn’t taken any lessons or flown in an airplane before. Manufactured planes and professional training were hard to come by in 1910.

On that day, November 21, Baysdorfer became the first Nebraskan pilot and the first to fly a Nebraska-built plane. No one who knew Charles and his brothers would have been at all surprised.

The sons of German immigrants, the Baysdorfer brothers—Otto, Charles, and Gus—moved with their parents to Omaha from Davenport, Iowa, in 1887. Otto opened a bicycle shop and learned to repair electrical motors. When local merchant Emil Brandeis bought the city’s first “horseless carriage” in 1895, Otto and his younger brothers began designing their own. Built entirely of locally-fabricated parts designed by the brothers, the “Ottomobile” was completed in 1898—the first Nebraska-built car.[1]

“Instead of a radiator they had a water tank under the seat,” the Omaha World-Herald reported on November 27, 1910, “and after the car had gone a few miles, this became so hot, that,—well the driver arose and stood up for a time, and let the car stop for a little rest.”[2]

The brothers then designed an engine they could mount on a bicycle—one of the city’s first motorcycles. A World-Herald profile of Otto on March 5, 1933, also credited the brothers with building the city’s first X-ray machine, with operating the “first motion picture machine at the first movie shown here,” and with “inventing a sparkplug, a gasoline gauge and various devices which brought them money and acclaim.”[3]

Charles left Omaha for four years in the early 1900s, touring the country as a balloonist and parachute jumper. The modern parachute harness had not yet been invented. Parachutists of the day straddled a sling and held onto a trapeze bar. Charles’s specialty was the double jump. He would let go of his parachute and free-fall for a few seconds—while onlookers shrieked below—before a second chute opened.

Charles Baysdorfer piloting the Comet during Omaha’s Ak-Sar-Ben carnival, October 3, 1907. History Nebraska RG3348-6-30

 

After Charles returned to Omaha, in 1907 the brothers built a dirigible airship—yet another Nebraska first. The Comet’s hydrogen-filled silk gasbag was fifty-two feet long and only capable of lifting one man. Its eight-horsepower engine left it vulnerable to strong winds. Flying above the city on October 3, Charles was swept southward over the Missouri River. Dropping to treetop level, he called to a fisherman below to row out and catch the rope.

“Pull your own damned rope!” the man called back.

Other fishermen were more generous and brought the airship down safely. A few weeks later the Baysdorfers entered the Comet in an airship race in St. Louis, but its engine failed and the wind carried it to an inglorious landing half a mile off course.[4]

Within a few years the Baysdorfers turned their attention to airplanes. The aviation craze was in full swing when the first “aeroplanes” flew in Nebraska in 1910. Glenn Curtiss—rival of the Wright Brothers—led a five-day air show in Omaha July 23-27. On September 6, Arch Hoxsey of the Wright flying team crashed his plane into a stable at the Nebraska State Fair in Lincoln, walking away with minor injuries.[5]

The Baysdorfers’ first plane was based on Glenn Curtiss’s design. Otto and Gus worked with the Curtiss mechanics during the Omaha air show, and Curtiss himself visited the Baysdorfer’s shop while he was in town. The brothers built everything but the motor and propeller at their Omaha shop.

Charles Baysdorfer in flight, Omaha World-Herald, Nov. 27, 1910.

 

After the first flights at Waterloo, Charles and Gus made some other Nebraska flights in 1911, but soon left the state to tour with a nationally-known aviation team. Charles was still flying in 1912 when the New York World interviewed his wife, Artye, for a September 7 article titled, “Constant Agony for the Wives of the Aviators.”

By this time so many prominent aviators had died in crashes that there was serious talk of banning public exhibition flights. Like most adventurers’ wives of the era, Artye expressed confidence in her “sensible” and “cool-headed” husband, even while admitting that “I simply cannot go to the field and watch him go up… I just have to shut my eyes and clench my fists and keep telling myself that he is all right and that he will come back safely.”

Young women were attracted to pilots, Artye said, but she warned that it was better to admire a pilot from the grandstand “than to keep wondering all the time how long it will be before your only remaining comfort will be to sit dressed in black with nothing but his picture and his press clippings to comfort you!”

A year later Charles crashed into a mountain in Vermont while doing stunt flying for a movie called The Battle in the Clouds. His engine failed during a mock bombing run. He suffered burns and a broken leg, but Artye’s worst fears were not realized. Charles survived, eventually gave up flying, and became a commercial fisherman in Florida.[6]

Otto and Gus remained in Omaha, where the World-Herald profiled them now and then as local heroes of invention. In a July 10, 1949, interview, Gus told a reporter of Charles’s latest invention: an anti-whirl fishing float that prevented backlash. “Charley… just loves to fish,” Gus said.[7] The daredevil-turned-fisherman died in 1962 at age eighty-four, the last of the Baysdorfer brothers, and having outlived his wife Artye by thirty years.[8]

 

This article was first published in Nebraska History News, July/August/September 2017.

Notes

[1] “Tells of Building First Car in Omaha,” Omaha World-Herald (hereafter, OWH), July 19, 1925, p. 8; “The First Blimp and Auto in Omaha,” OWH, March 5, 1933; David Harding, “Baysdorfer brothers, Omaha’s very own fathers of invention, were behind the 1st automobile and airplane built in Nebraska,” OWH, Oct. 23, 2005; Janet R. Daly Bednarek, Michael H. Bednarek, Dreams of Flight: General Aviation in the United States (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003), 9-10.

[2] “Omaha Daredevils of the Air Find Secret of Air Flying With New Biplane,” OWH, Nov. 27, 1910.

[3] “The First Blimp and Auto in Omaha.”

[4] “Baysdorfer Has A Wild Flight in Airship,” Omaha World-Herald (OWH), Oct. 4, 1907; “Beachey Wins Dirigible Balloon Race at St. Louis,” Los Angeles Herald, Oct. 24, 1907; “Everybody’s Column,” Philadephia Inquirer, Apr. 18, 1919. (Report of 1907 airship race in St. Louis.)

[5] Glenn Curtiss in Omaha: Omaha Daily Bee, July 23, 24, 25, 1910. See also: “Aviation Here 25 Years Old,” OWH, Sept. 29, 1935, pp. 1G, 6G; Arch Hoxsey at Nebraska State Fair: See Vince Goeres, Wings Over Nebraska (Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, 2010), pp. 8-9. (Hoxsey was killed in a crash later that year, and though not a Nebraskan himself is buried in the same grave as his father in Atkinson, Nebraska.)

[6] “Omaha Aviator Falls, Bombs Fire Machine,” OWH, Sept. 12, 1913. Charles was still flying as of 1914. See “Airplane Flights Were Appreciated,” Ocala [FL] Evening Star, Nov. 28, 1914.

[7] “Ex-Omaha’s Device Curbs Back Lash for Casters,” OWH, July 10, 1949. (Incorrectly states Charles’s age as 75.)

[8] U.S. Find a Grave Index, Artye Baysdorfer, 1932, Tampa, FL. Via Ancestry.com; U.S. Find a Grave Index, Charles Baysdorfer, via Ancestry.com. (Lists his date of birth as 11/27/1879, but his birth year is 1877 per multiple census records).

Become a Member!

Our members make history happen.

Join Now

You May Also Enjoy

The Story of Omaha Police Fingerprint Expert Emily Byram

The Story of Omaha Police Fingerprint Expert Emily Byram

Marker Monday: Cather Childhood Home

Marker Monday: Cather Childhood Home

Yutan Tornado – March 23, 1913

Yutan Tornado – March 23, 1913

About History Nebraska
History Nebraska was founded in 1878 as the Nebraska State Historical Society by citizens who recognized Nebraska was going through great changes and they sought to record the stories of both indigenous and immigrant peoples. It was designated a state institution and began receiving funds from the legislature in 1883. Legislation in 1994 changed History Nebraska from a state institution to a state agency. The division is headed by Interim Director and CEO Jill Dolberg. They are assisted by an administrative staff responsible for financial and personnel functions, museum store services, security, and facilities maintenance for History Nebraska.
Explore Nebraska
Discover the real places and people of our past at these History Nebraska sites.

Upcoming Events

View our new and upcoming events to see how you can get involved.

Become a Member

The work we do to discover, preserve, and share Nebraska's history wouldn't be possible without the support of History Nebraska members.

Latest Hall of Fame Inductee

The Nebraska Hall of Fame was established in 1961 to officially recognize prominent Nebraskans.

Listen to our Podcast

Listen to the articles and authors published in the Nebraska History Magazine with our new Nebraska History Podcast.

Nebraska Collections

History Nebraska's mission is to collect, preserve, and open our shared history to all Nebraskans.

Our YouTube Video Collection

Get a closer look at Nebraska's history through your own eyes, with our extensive video collections.

Additional Research Resources

History Nebraska Research and Reference Services help connect you to the material we collect and preserve.

Support History Nebraska
Make a cash donation to help us acquire, preserve, and interpret Nebraska’s history. Gifts to History Nebraska help leave a legacy and may help your taxes, too! Support the work of History Nebraska by donating to the History Nebraska Foundation today.

Volunteers are the heroes of History Nebraska. So much history, so little time! Your work helps us share access to Nebraska’s stories at our museums and sites, the reference room, and online.