A Runway 25 Miles Long: Aviation on the Daytona Beach Beach

I just uploaded part 1 of my article on aviation in Daytona Beach from 1906 to 1929.

Daytona Beach was the place to race motorcycles and cars in the early nineteen hundreds, and try to set speed records.

Aviation was also a big part of the scene, from about 1920 to 1929.

This first part of the article covers the early years, from 1906 to 1916.

Ruth Law flew passengers for the Clarendon Hotel from 1913 to 1916. She also flew exhibitions. And there's a well-known story in baseball series that, to inaugerate spring training in Daytona Beach in 1915, she threw a grapefruit from her plane that the catcher/manager Wilbert Robinson was supposed to catch, but it knocked him flat on the ground. Supposedly Casey Stengel put Ruth Law up to the joke.

http://thethunderchild.com/YouFlyGirl/Articles/DaytonaBeachAviation.html