bout: Cal Rodgers:

Calbraith Perry Rodgers (1879 - 1912)

Calbraith was born January 12, 1879 to Maria Chambers Rodgers. One of three children, he spent his early years in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.

At age 6 (1885) he contracted Scarlet Fever and the results left him near deaf in one ear and diminished capacity in the other ear. This eventually caused a slight speech impediment causing the typical energetic boy of 6 into a shy child. Because of his handicaps, he was not allowed to follow in the footsteps the ancestry dictated, military service.

Dropping out of College the Spring of 1898 Cal took to various sports activities including motorboat racing, yacht racing, auto racing and polo among others.

Summer of 1906, Cal (now 27) married the 24 year old Mabel Graves. Mabel was quoted as having written to her father, "Whatever Calbraith wishes is what I wish." and would live up to this leading up to and during the 49 day trek across the US.

May of 1911 Cal discovering the potential of flight with the help of his cousin Lt. John Rodgers.

Flight training began in July 1911 in Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Bros. operations. Cal quickly took to flying soloing in only 90 minutes of air instruction. Receiving his pilots license August 7, 1911, he was the 49th aviator to get his "ticket".

August 12, 1911, just 5 days after receiving his license to fly, Cal entered the Great Chicago Air Meet. It was here he won a 3rd place victory for staying aloft the longest, 27 hours total of a possible 31.5 hours granted over the the days of the event. Winnings amounted to $11,285, a princely sum for the day.

Promoter Stewart deKrafft approached Cal after the victory to propose him attempting the Wm. Randolph Hearst contest, flying coast to coast in 30 days or less. With agreements made, the Vin Fiz story takes off....

Calbraith Perry Rodgers died just 5 months after the victorious, world's record flight near the same location he had taxied to touch the Vin Fiz Flyers wheels in the Pacific surf. The date was April 3, 1912. Cal was 33.

* All information here was obtained from E.P. Stein's book "Flight of the Vin Fiz"

Imagination Counts, LLC is attempting to gather additional information on the life of Calbraith Perry Rodgers. Several authors have done incredible work to date on the Vin Fiz story and we will try to add to their findings via news clippings, letters, notes, post cards, photos and all materials we are able to uncover in the coming years leading up to the 100th anniversary of this historic flight.

Your help in this endeavor would be greatly appreciated. If you have any memorabilia relating to Cal, the cast and crew involved with the flight of the Vin Fiz, family members or Vin Fiz materials, it will be added to our small but growing collection and ultimately donated to a museum. Any donated material where used will receive recognition for donation.

"It's important...Because everything else I've done was not important." Calbraith Perry Rodgers - September 17, 1911