"The Fastest Man on Earth"

LXXXVIII

Glenn Curtiss (1878-1930) wasn’t the man who invented the wheel, but he made it round and attached it to another with an axle. Never an originator but an innovator, Curtiss showed a flair for invention in his teens.  He started out, like the Wright brothers, as a bicycle engineer. At his second job, working for George Eastman and Company, he devised an improved method of film emulsion that enhanced photography. At his third job, for Indian Motorcycles, he redesigned Indian engines to make them more balanced, lighter, and more powerful. He also invented the handlebar throttle found on all motorcycles today. At his fourth job, he designed a more powerful eight cylinder airship engine. 

He then became known as “The Fastest Man On Earth” when he raced an Indian modified with his airship engine at 136.4 miles per hour, a record that stood from 1904 to 1930. 

Work with his airship engine brought him to the attention of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, who was heading up an aeronautical consortium. Presented with the Wrights’ designs for aircraft, Curtiss improved them. This led the Wrights to accuse him of violating their patents, and Curtiss and the Wright brothers engaged in years of litigation that came to an end in 1917 when the U.S. Government forced them to settle, needing their joint technologies for the war effort.  Eventually, the two companies would merge into Curtiss-Wright. 

Curtiss, who’d grown up in Hammondsport, New York, on Lake Keuka, became fascinated with seaplanes and flying boats early on when he realized that the sea offered a vast and unimpeded landing field over 71% of the planet. 

His first design sank like a rock. His second design tipped over and sank like a rock. His next design was stable and stayed afloat. He could taxi the next one after that on the water, but it took him a lot of experimentation to devise a plane that would actually lift off from the water. Once that occurred, the United States Navy became interested in Curtiss’ flying boat designs. The Army followed suit when it ordered up thousands of Jennys during the Great War. 

After the war, Curtiss, like Henry Flagler before him, shifted his attention from business to lifestyle. He moved to Florida and founded the nation’s first truly planned community, Opa-Locka, with its distinctive “Arabian Nights” motif --- and an airport.