New West Book Review

Cromwell Dixon: Montana’s Boy Aviator

By Brian D’Ambrosio, Guest Writer, 10-03-08

Cromwell Dixon: A Boy & His Plane 1892-1911
By Martin J. Kidston
Farcountry Press, 168 pages, $14.95

Cromwell Dixon awoke on October 1, 1911 as the talk and toast of Helena, Montana. This child prodigy turned aviator had become the first pilot to fly across the Continental Divide in his aeroplane, the Little Hummingbird. Five days earlier, the Helena Independent declared that this 19-year-old daredevil pilot had given “the greatest exhibition ever seen in Northwest.” Now, he had truly outdone himself. He was a nationally recognized aviation hero.

Martin Kidston - a present day reporter for the Helena Independent - has taken a forgotten page in aviation history and authored it into a light, enjoyable read, Cromwell Dixon: A Boy & His Plane, 1892-1911. In the process, Kidston shows that Dixon was a boy aviator in name only; he was seasoned and intuitive beyond his years. 

Cromwell Dixon was a true child prodigy. As a boy, he built his own roller coaster and charged the neighborhood children a penny a ride. At age 11, fascinated with flying, he constructed two motor-driven bicycles. His first invention came to him when he was just 14 years old. Powered by pedals and a propeller, steered with a rudder connected to the handlebars, the boy designed and built a “sky bicycle.” Its balloon was cut from a huge silk baggy; similar to contemporary hot air blimps, it was filled with gas, and then fastened to a wooden frame.

After experimenting with the “sky bicycle,” Dixon became an exhibition pilot. Because Cromwell wasn’t old enough to be licensed, he had to convince his mother, Annie Wooten Dixon, to co-sign a contract with the Curtiss Exhibition Company of New York. Reluctant at first, she finally agreed, and on August 31, 1911, he was awarded just the forty-third pilot’s license issued in the United States. At nineteen, he was the youngest licensed aviator in the country – perhaps even the world. 

A confident Dixon pushed the limits of his flying machine – not much more than a shabby wooden box enveloped by chicken wire – and soon, he perfected the “Dixon Corkscrew,” an aerial exercise in which he would circle down from 8,000 feet, pull up, and level off just before landing. Cromwell’s celebrity even caught the attention of President William Howard Taft who invited the entire Dixon family out to a large dinner the night before an exhibition.

“Daring Aviator Will Attempt Perilous Feat of Mountain Crossing,” trumpeted the headlines in the Helena Independent on September 28, 1911. Curious spectators clustered at the Montana State Fairgrounds to watch Cromwell take off; others had already built a fire on the opposite side of the divide to help Cromwell identify his landing spot.

The teenager charted his famous flight over the divide thirsting to obtain the $10,000 offered by local executives as compensation to the first aviator to traverse the Continental Divide. Throngs of people gathered to see the famous boy wonder at the Montana State Fairgrounds in Helena, on September 30. One day earlier, he had enthralled much of the same audience with his daring aerial acrobatics. Ordinarily, when flying, the lanky, slender youth would wear his black-and-gray checkered cap turned backwards, but on this day, he wore a wool aviator’s crest, flannel-lined aviator’s jacket, and fur gloves.

A crisp, vivid, windless autumn morning provided the backdrop as multitudes of fans watched Dixon – determined to prove his talents as a pilot and make a name in aviation circles – twist up to 7,000 feet, and whorl out of sight. He flew west of Helena and landed successfully on the west side of Mullan Pass, in a field. By guiding his fragile Curtiss bi-wing plane over the Continental Divide, the Ohio-born teenager made history, becoming the first person to cross the Rocky Mountains.

Following his successful sojourn, he flew back to the fairgrounds where “a greater ovation than ever before given anyone at the fairgrounds was accorded Dixon when he mounted the platform,” The Helena Independent reported. “Governor Norris publicly congratulated Dixon and declared that he was without a peer in the realm of the air. Dixon, as usual, blushed furiously, but the cries of the crowd for a speech went unanswered.”

On October 2, 1911, just two days after his famous crossing, Dixon was killed when his aircraft was caught in a downdraft while performing an aerial stunt at the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds. The bi-plane encountered a strong, unexpected updraft, plunging it toward the ground, crushing the 19-year-old pilot under the heavy engine.

In Cromwell Dixon, A Boy & His Plane, Martin Kidston draws repeated parallels to Dixon’s life to Icarus, a character in Greek mythology. “Like the tale of Icarus,” writes Kidston, “Dixon’s story is one of great daring, accomplishment, and tragedy.”

Icarus was the son of Daedalus, and he is most remembered for his attempt to escape Crete by flight, which ended in a tumble to his death. Icarus and his father attempted to flee from his exile in Crete, where the pair languished in prison at the instruction of King Minos.

Daedalus assembled two sets of waxwings, one for himself and the other for his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus cautioned his son not to fly too close to the sun or the sea. Overcome by the sublimity that flying gave him, an overjoyed Icarus soared through the sky; just as his dad had feared, he floated too close to the sun, burning his wings. Icarus kept fluttering furiously but fast realized that his wings had no feathers left, and that he was doomed to flapping his bare arms. He then plummeted into the sea. 

The short, little known saga of Cromwell Dixon’s aviation story is brought to life in Kidston’s succinct 168-page account. Drawing heavily, if not solely, on newspapers clippings, the aviator’s brief existence is explained to the reader with sensitivity, ingenuity, and compassion, constructing an abbreviated but remarkable timeline for a life that can now be re-appreciated.

Cromwell Dixon Timeline

* July 9, 1892: Cromwell Dixon is born in Columbus, Ohio.

* Cromwell Dixon, as a boy, builds his own roller coaster and charges the neighborhood children a penny a ride.

* 1903: Dixon invents a motor-driven bicycle, just two years after the first commercial production of motorcycles by the Indian Motorcycle Company in 1901.

* December 17, 1903: Orville and Wilbur Wright achieve the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk.

* May 1907: Cromwell Dixon flies the Skycycle, a small dirigible that he built, powered by a bicycle and propeller at the Columbus Driving Park.

* October 22, 1907: Dixon flies the Skycycle from the Aero Grounds in St. Louis, Missouri, and is blown across the Mississippi River.

* 1911: Dixon is in the 1911 class of the Curtiss Aeroplane Company’s aviation school.

* July 9, 1911: Cromwell Dixon is issued a pilot’s license from the Aero Club of America, License Number 43.

* August 1911: Cromwell Dixon flies for the Grand Island Merchants’ Association in Grand Island, Nebraska.

* September 1911: Cromwell Dixon appears in Helena, Montana, to perform aerial feats in his Curtiss pusher, Little Hummingbird, for the Montana State Fair.

* September 30, 1911: Cromwell Dixon is the first pilot to cross the Continental Divide.

* October 2, 1911: Cromwell Dixon is killed when his aeroplane crashes during an exhibition flight at the Washington Interstate Fair in Spokane.

Perhaps the finest hour of Dixon’s life took place just before tragedy struck, when all was certainly possible, and he was invigorated with the excitement of his recent achievements in Montana. In fact, Helena residents have not forgotten about this bright young inventor and brave, precocious pilot who amazed them with a stunt-flying, fast-paced life: a campground on top of MacDonald Pass, near the Continental Divide, was recently named in his honor; a plaque at the Helena airport commemorates his flight.

Brian D’Ambrosio is a writer living in Missoula and the editor of the Clark Fork Journal. His second book, Fresh Oil and Loose Gravel: Road Poetry 1998-2008, was published recently.

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