September 27, 1910 – As 200,000 people look on,
Walter L. Brookins circles his Wright biplane 2,500 feet above the city for a
sustained flight of 20 minutes. Taking
off from Grant Park, which was “black with humanity,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 28, 1910] the aviator thrills the
crowd as he soars south to Twelfth Street, over the Loop to the Federal
Building on Dearborn Street, and back over the lake. “Chicago looks for all the world like the
picture on a postal card when you are 2,000 feet above it,” Brookins says at
the end of the flight. “I could look
down between my legs and see everything, but of course could recognize only a
few of the buildings. I knew the federal
building as soon as I saw it and I stopped my westward flight as I looked
directly beneath me.” The next day
Brookins would attempt a sustained trip from Chicago to Springfield in an
attempt to outrun an Illinois Central passenger train starting simultaneously.
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