Did You Know?
There is current controversy whether the Wright brothers were the first in flight. Some historians say a German immigrant in Connecticut was the first to fly—two years prior to the Wright brothers. But Jacob Brodbeck, a German immigrant in the Texas Hill Country, may have beat them both by four decades.
One account says Brodbeck made his first flight in a field about three miles east of Luckenbach Texas on September 20, 1865. His airship, which featured an enclosed space for the "aeronaut," a water propeller in case of accidental landings on water, a compass, and a barometer, and for which Brodbeck had predicted speeds between 30 and 100 miles per hour, was said to have risen 12 feet in the air and traveled 100 feet before the springs unwound and the machine crashed to the ground.
Later, on a fund-raising tour of the United States, his papers were stolen in Michigan. Because historians lack documentary evidence, his exploits remain only a fun quirk in Texas history files.
A bronze bust of Brodbeck can be found in Fredericksburg's Marktplatz.
