Chanute, KS and Octave Chanute

Another history lesson.

With settlers arriving as early as 1856 and the railroad set to arrive shortly thereafter, the early residents of the area needed an innovative solution to an escalating dispute between the towns of Tioga, Chicago Junction, Alliance, and New Chicago. With each town vying for the right to house the LL&G Railroad’s new land office, a compromise was needed to settle the dispute. However, the towns were unable to settle their differences until an individual by the name of Octave Chanute came to town. Octave was the Chief Engineer and General Superintendent of the LL&G Railroad. In 1872, he suggested the towns merge together to end the bickering. On January 1, 1873 the towns merged and became chartered as the City of Chanute.

However, Octave Chanute should be remembered for another history-making event. He moved to Chicago in 1889 and began working on solving “the problem of the ages” – heavier-than-air flight. He corresponded with men all over the world interested in flight. He gathered all the information he could find, looking into records of experiments going back 300 years. In 1891, he wrote a series of articles, which were republished in the book, Progress in Flying Machines.
Progress in Flying Machines made Octave Chanute the world’s first aviation historian, but, more importantly, for the first time experimenters could read of work done before them and not have to waste time by repetition.

In 1896, at the age of 64, Chanute began to actively experiment with gliders along the shores of Lake Michigan near Gary, Indiana. During his glider experiments, he developed the biplane. His biplane design was so successful that it underwent few changes during the next 50 years. It was the Chanute Biplane that the Wright Brothers modeled their Kitty Hawk after. The Wright Brothers received their copy of Octave Chanute’s book personally in 1899 from the author, who became both their friend and advisor. At their invitation, Chanute visited the Wrights at Dayton, Ohio, and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and it was Octave Chanute who, at a meeting in December, 1903, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science announced to the world that the Wright Brothers had flown in a heavier than air machine.