The Good Doctor,
I have researched a family legend and have not been able to find the answer. I was hoping you could help.
The family legend says that Papaw--Benjamin A. Bower, a pilot in the Great War--returned from Europe to fly biplanes across the South to keep up with his various business ventures. One of the many stories told about him says that he once flew a biplane under the Gay Street bridge to the delight of onlookers. This event would have taken place, I assume, before he founded his company Camel Manufacturing, which is still in operation today. He also founded Bower's, the general store that had a location on Gay Street up until I believe the late '60s.
Any help in getting to the bottom of the tale about flying under Gay Street bridge would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
Benjamin Moore, grandson
Dear Mr. Moore:
Your specific question is a tough one. The short answer is, we can't prove your grandfather did not fly under the Gay Street Bridge.
Benjamin Bower (1891-1981) enjoyed one of the more remarkable retail careers of the last century. He grew up in Knoxville, the son of a recent British immigrant who had come here during Knoxville's boom years to open a clothing shop. The younger Bower turned out to be a dynamic businessman, too, and did found the Camel tent business, an apparent outgrowth of his interest in army surplus. He also had a lumber company, and a hand in several other enterprises. His name was most prominent in that of the Market Square institution known as Bower's, a sort of outfitter kind of clothing store. The tall building now being renovated on the northeastern corner of the Square was once a Bower's. It later moved to the middle of that block.
Bower, who went to UT, trained in flight with the U.S. Army, presumably with the old U.S. Signal Corps, as early as 1916, and did serve during World War I, but according to his obituaries and to interview stories published during his lifetime, he never went overseas. The old Knoxville Journal columnist Vic Weals wrote two columns about the elderly Mr. Bower in 1976. Weals says Mr. Bower took a military "pre-flight course" only to be told that "the Army had all the pilots they needed."
That may have been good news, as far as his future descendants are concerned. Most World War I fighter pilots never came home.
Mr. Bower was eventually assigned to be an "artillery aerial observer." Which sounds pretty exciting, in itself, even if it was stateside.
He was indeed one of Knoxville's early pilots. You probably know that he had a limp as a result of a crash in Harlan, Ky. Back in the biplane era, it was more common to survive plane crashes.
Though we assume the city did not encourage such stunts, in an era when many were old enough to remember financing the 1897 construction of the expensive bridge, the sight of that particular span was hard for adventurous pilots to ignore. For pioneer aviators, the Gay Street Bridge presented Knoxville's most obvious challenge, mocking early pilots with its steely sneer. Our aviation-historian colleague Bob Davis has found an account of teenaged daredevil Frank Andre, a Swiss immigrant's son who was also fond of dropping actual bombs, flying under the bridge in 1924. He almost certainly wasn't the first or last. Mr. Davis adds that a visiting barnstormer mentioned the prospect as early as 1910, and we've heard stories that pilots were still accepting the challenge as late as the 1950s. It somehow seems a less charming prospect today.
Whether Mr. Bower accepted the bridge's challenge, we cannot yet prove, short of the discovery of a newspaper article describing it, but it's certainly plausible.
What he did do, soon after the Great War, was deal in all sorts of army surplus, and there are lots of inspiring stories concerning Bower doing a lot with a little, the retail equivalent of heroism.
Among the surplus supplies he bought wholesale, it sounds as if he was most enthusiastic about surplus airplanes--he bought dozens of planes and parts at an army sale in Georgia in 1921, and brought most of them back with him. Some have credited him with the fact that there was a lot of flying in Knoxville in the 1920s.
Mr. Bower did like to tell a story concerning an airplane and the underside of a bridge on Gay Street--but it differs in several particulars. Bower traded a visiting Virginian an early biplane for his car. When Bower heard the man had crashed the plane on his flight home, he knew the erstwhile pilot would have regrets about the bargain, and would want his car back. Bower prudently hid the car in a safe place. Sure enough, the disappointed aeroplane shopper came back to Knoxville, angry and demanding his car back, because he'd hardly had a chance to enjoy the plane. Bower said he'd already sold it. In fact he'd just stashed it in a secret spot underneath the Gay Street viaduct.
Bower did sell the car, later, to a guy who used it to start a cab company.
We don't know whether that helps with your question, but it is, at the moment, the best we've got.
Z. Heraclitus Knox, Ph. Lu.
Come one, come all! Dr. Knox answers your questions regarding the history of the Knoxville metropolis. Send all your queries, big or small, to editorATmetropulseDOTcom.
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.