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Early American aviator Charles K. Hamilton completed the first flight in Western Canada at Minoru Park in 1910.

Photo via commons.wikimedia.org

American ‘aeronaut’ took off from Minoru in first flight

By Don Fennell

Published 2:15 PDT, Tue August 31, 2021

Last Updated: 4:45 PST, Thu November 18, 2021

The second installment in a series on the history of Minoru Park focuses on the story of the first flight in Western Canada.

His lips pursed around an ever-present cigarette, Connecticut’s “crazy man of the air” took to the skies over Minoru Park.

Charles Keeney Hamilton was about to make history.

Notwithstanding it was the second of four days without rain, Friday, March 25, 1910 was a pleasant nine degrees and reflective of the usual spring weather in the Lower Mainland. The Richmond racetrack, which had opened only the previous summer, was packed with 3,500 curious onlookers as the 24-year-old American daredevil from New Britain—a suburb of Hartford—climbed into his Curtiss biplane and set off for nearby New Westminster. He would return, safe and sound, a half hour later having completed the 20-mile round trip that marked the first powered flight in Western Canada.

Ironically, just days earlier Hamilton (who was known for his dangerous dives and survived more than 60 crashes) had to be fished out of a lake near Seattle during the first flight in Washington—a state that became synonymous with flight as the birthplace of Boeing in 1916.

Hamilton would return to Minoru on March 26 for a staged race against a thoroughbred named Prince Brutus which, to his chagrin, he lost. But, according to the Richmond Museum, the horse did have a 3/8 of a mile head start in the race which it won by 10 seconds.

In a bit of serendipity, on the same day as Hamilton’s small setback, Orville Wright (who along with his brother Wilbur was credited with building and flying the world’s first successful motor-operated airplane) launched flying lessons to five students at a flying school in Montgomery, Alabama.

Describing himself as an “aeronaut,” Hamilton was a hot air balloonist and parachute jumper at fairs and circuses before forging a friendship with engineer A. Roy Knabeshue at the age of 18. It was then that his interest in flying took off, and in 1909 he began taking flying lessons from Glenn Curtiss and later joined his exhibition team during which he earned his reputation as a daredevil flyer.

Not long after his adventure in Richmond, Hamilton won a $10,000 prize as the first to fly between two major U.S. cities—New York and Philadelphia.

Minoru’s flight history didn’t end with Hamilton’s heroics. Those events just signaled the beginning.

The first flight across the Rocky Mountains also originated at the park where, in the wee hours (4:14 a.m. to be precise) of Aug. 7, 1919, Capt. E.C. Hoy started the first flight across the Rocky Mountains. Aboard his Canada-built Curtiss aircraft, Hoy adopted a route that took him over Vernon, Grand Forks, Cranbrook and through the Crawford Pass. Reaching an altitude of 7,000 feet, and with extra fuel in tow, he touched down in Lethbridge, Alberta at 6:22 p.m. He then flew on to Calgary where he completed his journey just before 9 p.m.

The Richmond Museum also notes that in 1911 Minoru Park was where the first take-off of a plane constructed in Greater Vancouver—by William
and Winston Templeton—was attempted. It crashed into a fence. In 1912, William Stark’s aircraft carried the first passenger—though it wasn’t designed to do so. James Hewitt sat on a board strapped to the plane.

And on July 31, 1913, always-adventurous Alys McKey Bryant became the first woman to complete a solo flight in Canada. The museum notes that Bryant apparently rebuilt wreckage of a Curtiss pusher plane and taught herself to fly. She later also became an accomplished stunt pilot, and used her technical know-how working as an aircraft mechanic and training pilots for military service at Lansdowne Park, which was used until 1931 when the new airport opened on Sea Island—eventually to grow into Vancouver International Airport.

Photo by Don Fennell