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Sunday, October 10, 1999

State's first manned balloon lifted off in 1882 from Albuquerque

By Scott Smallwood
Journal Staff Writer
On the morning of July 4, 1882, a bright, clear day in Albuquerque, crowds flocked to a vacant lot near Gold and Second to witness a bit of history.
There -- more than two decades before the Wright brothers first flew their airplane on a North Carolina beach -- New Mexicans had come to watch, as the newspaper ads had been proclaiming for weeks, "man's dominion over the very air he breathes."
Professor Park A. Van Tassel, a tall, blond bartender, had recently purchased a balloon in California. As part of the Fourth of July festivities, he was scheduled to make the first manned balloon flight in New Mexico history.
C.W. Talbott, the gas works operator, had started filling the balloon at 5 p.m. the day before. On the morning of the Fourth of July, he still was filling it.
Christened "The City of Albuquerque," the 30,000-cubic-foot balloon was made of goldbeater's skin, a fabric made from the intestines of cattle. A net of hemp rope held the balloon to a wicker gondola. The launch, with Van Tassel and newspaper reporter John Moore as his passenger, was scheduled for 10 a.m.
The crowd, numbered in the thousands by local reporters, gathered early.
Impatiently, they waited. And waited some more. The appointed time came and went, and still the balloon would not fill. Some thought the delay was a ploy by saloon owners to prevent the crowds from fleeing to Fourth of July celebrations in Old Town. Murmurs that the flight would never happen rippled through the crowd.

Town in transition
Albuquerque in 1882 was a town, or perhaps two towns, facing new horizons. The railroad had arrived just two years earlier, transforming the Duke City and bringing people to the area that now is Downtown for the first time. Feuds between Old Town, the area around the plaza, and New Albuquerque, this hard-drinking railroad area, were growing common. The current spat was over where the post office should be.
New Albuquerque, like railroad towns throughout the country, saw trading posts, hotels, houses and bars spring up -- especially bars. It had saloons named the White Elephant, the Bucket of Blood, the Blue Indigo and the Silver Dollar. Inside, gambling was common and ladies were not.
"The patrons were served by men, not frizzy or marcelled waitresses. No padded or upholstered stools prevented free and easy access to the bar," Joseph Schmedding later wrote in his book "Cowboy and Indian Trader." "The swinging doors effectively barred the gentler sex, except those ladies commonly distinguished as such between quotation marks."
One of these saloons, the Elite, was owned and run by Park A. Van Tassel, who termed himself a professor, though it's unclear of what.
He wasn't the only self-appointed professor running around town. The same day Van Tassel was scheduled to make the inaugural New Mexico flight, Professor Andress, "the greatest living illusionist, prince of ventriloquists and only great bird educator," was inviting people to the Methodist church for an exhibition featuring bird tightrope walking and birds wheeling each other around in a wheelbarrow.

Attention diverted
By 1 p.m. that day, the disappointed balloon spectators were drifting over to Old Town and the nearby fairgrounds for the Fourth of July festivities, including greased pigs, running races and a baseball game.
Once there, the fire company won $10 by pulling its new truck 100 yards in just 19 seconds. John Maden earned $5 for winning a blindfolded, 100-yard wheelbarrow race.
The Albuquerque Browns took to the diamond against an overmatched opponent, the Opera House Nine, at 3 p.m. The game was called after just a few innings, with the Browns on top 24 to 4.
At 5 p.m., a telephone call to the fairgrounds brought word that the balloon would lift off at 6:15 p.m.
Back in New Albuquerque, the professor was getting ready for the inaugural flight. He and Moore, the newspaper reporter who was to write about the historic flight, climbed into the gondola. But The City of Albuquerque wouldn't rise.
It was decided that the load needed to be lightened, and the reporter stepped out.
But the balloon, which was only two-thirds full, still would not rise. Van Tassel then threw one of the sand-filled ballast bags over the side, striking a spectator, who later filed a lawsuit. The balloon rose and Van Tassel waved the Stars and Stripes to the cheering crowd below.
As he climbed higher, the people faded from his view until, he said, they seemed "like one black mass of humanity." He floated toward the Rio Grande, which Van Tassel later said looked like a tiny silver thread from 11,000 feet.
The wind then pushed him toward Old Town. He emptied another ballast bag and the balloon rose to 14,207 feet, according to the barometer in his gondola.
"I thought that high enough as it was becoming difficult to breathe and the air was cold," Van Tassel later said. "So I pulled the valve rope and after some difficulty succeeded in opening it."
The balloon started falling quickly. Van Tassel shut the valve, but still he was rapidly heading toward the ground. He threw out his coat, his basket of lunch and a bottle of water to lighten the load.
As the balloon coasted lower, Van Tassel tossed out his anchor, which caught in a ditch and the balloon settled to the ground.
The City of Albuquerque, with its intrepid barkeeper pilot, had landed in a cornfield near the fairgrounds. Crowds helped deflate the balloon and take the esteemed professor back to the Elite for a giant party.

Final word
The city fathers were so pleased with the balloon ride that within a week they announced Van Tassel would be bringing his balloon to the Territorial Fair that coming fall.
The second flight didn't go as smoothly.
Before he could climb in, the unmanned balloon rose into the sky, floating for 15 minutes before it burst and crashed.
The disappointment didn't end Van Tassel's high flying. He later acquired another balloon and traveled the world. The word, at least as it floated back to Albuquerque, was that the professor had traveled to Hawaii, where on his last flight he crashed into the Pacific Ocean and was eaten by sharks.