Question: What is the name of the contraption rumored to have achieved powered flight in 1902 in East Texas?
Answer: The Ezekiel Airship. The odd-looking aircraft was designed by part-time Baptist minister Burrell Cannon, a sawmill operator who was born in Mississippi and moved to East Texas in the late 1800s. He held patents for six inventions, including designs for marine propellers, windmills, and cameras. In the 1890s, he raised $20,000 in stock to design an aircraft with paddle wheels modeled after the vision described in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, in which the prophet saw flying creatures followed by “a wheel within a wheel.”
The aircraft was said to have flown in Pittsburg in 1902, but there are no photographs or other evidence to support that claim. While en route to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Cannon’s machine was destroyed by a storm in Texarkana. The original plans for the aircraft were lost in a fire in 1922. Today, a replica of the Ezekiel Airship is displayed in the Northeast Texas Rural Heritage Center and Museum in Pittsburg.
