Category Archives: Minnesota History

Japanese Fu-Go Fire Balloons of WW2: Part 4

US Army photo, via Wikipedia.

US Army photo, via Wikipedia.

In part 3 of this series, we looked at some of the remarkable distances covered by the Japanese Fu-Go fire balloons of World War II.  Some of these balloons were found far inland in North America, including balloons found in Iowa, South Dakota, Manitoba, and Michigan.  There’s no record of any of these balloons making it to Minnesota (although there’s the possibility that somewhere in Minnesota lies the rusting wreckage of one).  But one of them played an interesting role in Minnesota postwar aviation.

As we covered in part 3, one of the balloons landed near Grand Rapids, Michigan.  It was largely intact, and quickly whisked away by the FBI.  It ultimately found its way to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, where it remained until the end of the war.  In 1946, a young sailor named Don Piccard was stationed there, and was tasked with taking the craft to the dump.  (The balloon was labeled as having come from Flint, Michigan, but it’s believed that it was actually the Grand Rapids balloon.)

Lakehurst is famous for lighter-than-air flying, and Piccard was undoubtedly stationed there for a reason. His family had long been active in ligher-than-air flight.  His father was Swiss-born Jean Felix Piccard, then a professor of aeronautical engineering at the University of Minnesota.  His mother was Jeanette Piccard.  Jean Felix and Jeanette in 1933 had piloted a balloon 57,579 feet into the stratosphere.  This constituted the world record altitude for flight by a woman, a record held for 29 years until Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space.    If Wikipedia is to believed, Gene Roddenberry named the character Jean-Luc Picard after Jean Felix Piccard or his brother Auguste, another aviation pioneer.  In fact, Jean-Luc is supposed to be a descendant of one of the men.

(Jeanette also became, in 1974, the first woman ordained as an Episcopal priest.  At the age of 11, in response to the question of what she wanted to be when she grew up, she answered “a priest.”  Her mother reportedly ran out of the room in tears.  But after her long career in aviation, at the age of 79, she was ordained as one of the “Philadelphia Eleven.”)

Rather than taking the balloon to the dump as directed, the younger Piccard obtained a property pass to keep possession of the war trophy.  Upon his discharge, he became a student at the University of Minnesota where his father taught.  And he set out figuring out how to fly the balloon.

The Civil Aviation Agency had, at that time, the category of free balloon pilot, but no such license had been issued.  A license for an airship pilot carried privileges for free balloons, and Piccard had accomplished most of his flight requirements in balloons with airship pilots.  But he had not yet soloed, and he saw the war souvenir as an opportunity to do just that.

While the balloon was apparently in relatively good condition, it did have tears and was in need of repair.  A glue adequate to do the job had to be procured.  In addition, he needed funds to purchase the hydrogen, as well as kiln-dried sand to serve as ballast.  (Sand with moisture would freeze, making for a lethal projectile when dropped.)

Piccard preparing for the 1947 flight. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaelogy.

Piccard preparing for the 1947 flight. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaelogy.

To get the necessary funding, he sought the sponsorship of the Minneapolis Daily Times, which was granted, and the craft bore the paper’s name, above its N number, NX79598.  Piccard was also a member of the Army Air Corps ROTC, which became the U.S. Air Force days before the flight.   It was also sponsored by the ROTC, and Piccard wore a hastily assembled U.S. Air Force uniform during the flight.  He later recounted that not only was his the first U.S. Air Force flight to take place in Minnesota, but also that his was quite possibly the first U.S. Air Force uniform ever worn.

The flight took place on February 16, 1947, from Minneapolis to White Bear Lake.  After launch, apparently from South Minneapolis, Piccard had to maintain his altitude by venting the balloon and dropping ballast.  He had originally intended to climb to the calculated maximum altitude of 12,000 feet and then begin his descent.  But an overcast required him to control the altitude throughout the flight.  The winds carried him to White Bear Lake, during which time Piccard had remained aloft for more than the two hours necessary to qualify for his solo flight, and he the CAA subsequently issued him the first ever free balloon pilot license.  (This was the balloon’s last flight.  Since Piccard didn’t have a bill of sale for the Japanese balloon, he was unable to register the craft.)

The flight received media attention nationwide, and also caused quite a commotion as it landed in White Bear Lake.  Apparently, nobody had told the White Bear Lake Police Department that the flight was headed their way, and they were unprepared for the resulting commotion as hundreds of curiosity seekers flooded the area, trespassing on private property.  At one point, the officers threatened to arrest the army personnel in the chase vehicle, who they determined must be responsible for the breach of the peace.

Scene of the landing in White Bear Lake. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

Scene of the landing in White Bear Lake. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

The last flight of a Fu-Go balloon. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

The last flight of a Fu-Go balloon. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

Since the Daily Times was actually an afternoon newspaper, the morning papers all managed to scoop the sponsor of the flight, although they didn’t refer to it in print as being the Daily Times Flight.  Piccard later wrote a detailed account of his flight for Air & Space Smithsonian.

Don Piccard. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Don_Piccard-011.jpg#/media/File:Don_Piccard-011.jpg

Don Piccard. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Piccard is regarded as the driving force behind the sport of ballooning, and is still active with his company, Piccard Balloons.  When I looked at Piccard’s personal web page, www.N6US.com, I mistakenly assumed that he was a ham.  While the URL looks like an Amateur Radio call sign, it should be remembered that aircraft tail numbers (or whatever they’re called on balloons) also use the same international prefixes as radio call signs.  In this case, N6US is not a radio call sign issued by the FCC, but an aircraft registered to Mr. Piccard.

In 2008, Piccard was inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.  (The other member of the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame who has been mentioned in this blog was Sherman Booen, about whom we wrote in connection with the 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard.)

The balloon after launch. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

The balloon after launch. Image courtesy of Michigan Aviation Archaeology.

 

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Jeffrey Benya of Michigan Aviation Archaelogy for giving permission to use the images of the newspaper clippings shown here.

References

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Dr. Norman Barden 1892-1926

The June 1911 issue of Modern Electrics magazine carries an interesting article written by one Norman Barden, detailing experiments being carried on at East High School in Minneapolis. Among other things, the reason why the article caught my eye was that this school was the predecessor of my alma mater, Minneapolis Edison.

East High was opened in 1900 and operated under that name until 1927, at which time it was used as a vocational school for a number of years. It was located between University Avenue and Southeast Fourth Street on what was then First Avenue Southeast, which was later renamed Central Avenue. Edison opened in 1922 and Marshall High (in whose old building I had my office for a number of years) opened in 1924, eliminating the need for East High. So in a sense, I went to the same school.

Barden starts his article by pointing out that the “public has been startled” to learn that a high-frequency current can pass through the human body with no ill effects. He explains that “there are several different theories put forth to explain why high frequency current does not produce fatal results upon animals and the human body,” even though the same current and voltage at a lower frequency or at DC, “fatal results occur.”

BardenTeslaUndaunted by the possibility of fatal results, and apparently oblivious as to the reason why they were non-fatal, Barden went ahead and sent the potentially fatal currents through humans, including himself, as shown in the picture here.

(It turns out that the explanation for the non-lethality is somewhat mundane.  The equipment appears to be an ordinary Tesla coil, meaning that while the voltages are very high and will generate a most impressive spark, the current passing through the human subject is extremely small.)

It turns out that this wasn’t the only dangerous science going on at East High.  Mr. Barden was apparently shooting guns in the photography lab, as detailed in other published articles.  In articles in the May 1911 issue of Popular Electricity and the 1914 Journal of the U.S. Artillery, he publishes photos of bullets photographed in flight after being shot from a .22 caliber rifle and a .32 caliber revolver.  Not surprisingly, he points out that when you fire guns at school, “a back-stop must be provided to keep the bullets from penetrating the wall.”  He used a piece of boiler plate behind a 2-1/2 inch piece of wood.  He also points out that you need to be careful, since you’re doing the experiment (including firing the gun) in a totally darkened room.  If you are going to replicate his experiment, it’s probably not a good idea to walk around after turning out the lights.  Barden is shown below with his co-experimenter, Loyle Dobbs.  The 1914 article also appeared in Scientific American.

BardenDobbs

As you can see, the rifle is plainly visible in this photo.  Apparently, East High didn’t have a “no guns” sign on the front door.

In addition to these publications, Barden also had published in a 1910 issue of Popular Atronomy a photograph of a comet he had taken through a telescope he had constructed himself.

When I saw the original article, I assumed that Mr. Barden was a teacher at the school.  But it turns out that he was actually one of the students.  A hundred years ago, high school students could get their articles published in Scientific American.  Today, they’re not allowed to touch the experiments.

BardenYearbookThe first record of young Mr. Barden is an article in the the June 14, 1906 Minneapolis Journal, where he is listed as a seventh grade student at Holmes School.  He’s shown here in his East High yearbook photo, which shows that he graduated in January, 1912.   In 1913, he is listed as a sophomore at the University of Minnesota College of Science, Literature, and the Arts.  And in 1919, he graduated from medical school in Ohio.

He returned to Minneapolis in time for the 1920 census, and went into practice.  In this 1921 directory, he is shown as having an office in the Donaldson Building and a home address of 1209 7th St. SE.  According to the 1921 Journal-Lancet of the Minnesota State Medical Association, He was the assistant to Dr. C.D. Harrington, a “pioneer in the therapeutic use of radium and the x-ray,” and the rongenologist of Northwestern, Asbury, Abbott, and St. Mary’s Hospitals.

Unfortunately, Dr. Barden’s promising scientific career came to a tragic end with his mysterious death in 1926.

The newspapers of August 18, 1926  reported that one Mrs. J.D. McDermott, the wife of a Chicago millionaire contractor, was being held by Minneapolis police following Dr. Barden’s death. His body was found by police in a room occupied by the couple in a downtown hotel. According to news accounts, the doctor was found “fashionably dressed and wearing several diamond rings said to be worth more than $10,000.” Two days later, the papers reported that Mrs. McDermott had been released, the post mortem having determined that the doctor had actually died from “acute alcoholism.”

Dr. Barden is buried at Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis.

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1965 Fridley Tornado

Fridley tornado aftermath. NOAA photo, via Wikipedia.

Fridley tornado aftermath. NOAA photo, via Wikipedia.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Fridley Tornado  of May 6, 1965. That night, six tornadoes hit the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, with two of them hitting the suburb of Fridley, near University Avenue and Interstate 694. Thirteen people were killed, and property damage totalled $14.5 million. Of that total, $5 million was to the Fridley school system, where the Fridley Junior High was badly damaged. The storm struck in the evening, but about 300 people were attending an evening program. Only one child, however, suffered injuries. In Fridley, 1100 homes were damaged and 425 destroyed.

I don’t have a specific recollection of this storm, since I was four years old at the time.  I do, however, remember being in the basement with a flashlight and a radio close at hand, and I’m sure this was one of the occasions, since this was about 3 miles from where I grew up.  Chances are, we were following the storm on WCCO radio (or perhaps on our built-in basement TV, if the power was still on).  The WCCO radio coverage of the storm has been preserved, and you can listen to all of it at RadioTapes.com.

In addition, this week’s Access Minnesota radio program from the University Minnesota has an interesting look back at the storm.    You can listen to the program online at their website.

References

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WCCO Radio in 1925

WCCOstudio1925For those interested in the early history of WCCO radio in Minneapolis, the May 1925 issue of Radio Age carried a feature on the station as it was 90 years ago. The station had just put into service its new 5000 watt transmitter, what the magazine called “one of the super broadcasting units.” It also noted that the Minneapolis studios at the Nicollet Hotel were “said to be the equal both in equipment and elegance of anything in the country.”

In addition to the Minneapolis studio, the station had just begun construction of a studio in St. Paul, which would probably be “the most unique location of any studios in the world, for they will be in Saint Paul’s handsome new Union Depot used by nine railroads.”

The transmitter was at the station’s current transmitter location, 18 miles northwest of Minneapolis in Anoka. Special telephone lines connected the studios and transmitter.

The station had come on the air in October 1924, using the equipment of the former WLAG.

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Minneapolis Great Northern Depot, 1917

GreatNorthernDepot

Here is the Minneapolis Great Northern Depot as it appeared in 1917. At its peak during World War II, the station served 125 trains a day. At the time of its closing in 1978, it served a single train daily, when service was moved to the Midway Amtrak station. The building was torn down that same year. The image here is from the 1917 Plan of Minneapolis prepared by the Minneapolis Civic Commission.

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Minnesota Wireless Association in 1915

MNWirelessAssn1915

MplsCityHall

Minneapolis City Hall 2012 cropped” by Jason Riedy from East Point, GA, USA. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

The Minnesota Wireless Association (MWA), according to its QRZ.com listing, has been in existence since 1914, and that fact is borne out by the photograph above, which appeared a hundred years ago, in the March 1915 issue of Popular Mechanics.  The article describes the station installed in the Minneapolis City Hall, a structure which is still in existence and easily recognizable, as seen in the modern photo here.

The magazine reported that the station had just been installed by the Minnesota Wireless Association, and was “probably the largest private wireless station” at the time. It noted that the instruments in the station were “arranged with particular reference to experimental work, which will include tests and comparisons of new apparatus, studies of stray electrical disturbances, and the development of new apparatus.” The antenna consisted of eleven wires between the two towers, 400 feet above ground at the clock tower.

The article reported a receiving range of 4000 miles and a “sending range limited only by the power used.” The station had a license to operate on any wavelength and with any power, but the article noted that “every precaution will be taken not to interfere with other stations.” The station apparently used only radiotelegraph at the time, but the article noted that a wireless telephone set was under construction.

According to a 1914 Wireless Age account, the station’s best DX was Colon, Panama, as member Claud Sweeny had copied that signal.  The club also reported that the station had excellent reception of time signals, presumably from NAA in Arlington, Virginia, and it was likely that those signals would be utilized for controlling the city clock, “thus giving Minneapolis the first radio municipal time.”

The MWA currently holds the call sign W0AA, although I’m not sure when they received this call.  According to the Club’s QRZ.com listing, they’ve held it since 1967, in memory of one of its members, Art Andersen, who had held the call prior to his death.  However, W0AA is shown in the 1952 call book as belonging to the club, with Andersen listed as the trustee.  The 1938 call book shows W9AA as belonging to a ham in Chicago, so it appears that the club got the ‘AA call sometime between 1938 and 1952.

According to the September 1914 issue of Wireless Age, the station bore the call sign 9ZE.  That call is listed in the 1914 call book as being held by Philip E. Edelman, who is identified in the Wireless Age article as being the Association’s president.   The club is listed in the 1920 call book as holding the license for special land station 9ZT, with an address of 402 Courthouse Bldg.  In the 1926 call book, the licensee for that call sign is a familiar name in Amateur Radio history, D.C. Wallace, later W6AM.  A QST search for 9ZT reveals that the call was Wallace’s personal call sign until he moved to California in the 1920’s.  It’s unclear, therefore, whether MWA has continously held a license for the last hundred years.  But as the photo above proves, they have been a force in Amateur Radio for a century, as 9ZE, 9ZT, W0AA, and possibly other call signs.

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Don C. Wallace: W6AM, Amateur Radio’s Pioneer

 

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W9XJL: Duluth-Superior Shortwave Broadcast Station

W9XJL QSL card,

W9XJL 1938 QSL card, All Wave Radio, Feb. 1938.  A color image of the card can be found at this link.,

You probably didn’t know that Superior, Wisconsin, was once the home of a shortwave broadcast station. Station W9XJL was an experimental station licensed to Head of Lakes Broadcasting Company.  It originally operated with 80 watts on 26.10 MHz, and later increased its power to 250 watts. The January 1940 issue of Radio & Television magazine carries the following report:

W9XJL, 26.10 mc, Superior, Wis., is now using a full 250 watts from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Much can be said for the fine quality and consistency this station has shown in the last three years and for its excellent verification policy. Our observers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Florida, Arizona, California and Washington all report an R9 signal whenever the band opens.

w9xjl

WEBC-W9XJL advertisement, 1939 Broadcasting Yearbook.

W9XJL  simulcasted  Duluth-Superior station WEBC on the Apex band, which existed from 1934 to 1940. The 11 meter band (25-27 MHz) was allocated internationally for broadcasting, but largely unused outside of the U.S. Apex stations. In Minnesota, both WCCO and WTCN had licenses to broadcast on the Apex band, as W9XHW and W9XTC respectively.  (A portion of the band, 25.6-26.1 MHz, is still allocated for international broadcasting, but rarely used.)  Some sources incorrectly describe W9XJL as an FM station, but it actually used amplitude modulation, although the Apex stations generally used a wider bandwidth than on the standard broadcast band, thus allowing for a more “high fidelity” audio signal.

W9XJL transmitted from 40th and Tower Avenue in Superior.  The program was generally the same as WEBC, with an announcer at the transmitter location breaking in to give the station identification.  One interesting use of the station was reported in 1937 as the relay of personal messages to and from persons wintering on Isle Royale. Station WSHC was licensed to Isle Royale.

W9XJL did receive reception reports from around the world.  As noted above, it had a good reputation for QSL’ing.

References

 

 

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Minneapolis School A-V Equipment of the 1960’s and 1970’s

SetchellCarlsonTV

If you went to school in Minneapolis in the 1970’s, I bet these pictures look vaguely familiar. This is a 1972 ad from Setchell-Carlson, then known as SC Electronics, Inc., a subsidiary of Audiotronics Corporation, with an address of 530 5th Avenue NW, New Brighton, MN. This ad appears in the March 1972 issue of Broadcast Engineering.

The Minneapolis Public Schools were equipped with what I believe was the model at the left.  I’m showing the one on the right to show the distinctive controls in the center, which are hidden behind the optional “tamper-proof control compartment door” of the black and white model on the left.  I don’t think that Minneapolis had the door, or else the doors were routinely left open.

At Waite Park Elementary School, I don’t believe that every classroom was equipped with a TV.  There were one or two of these that were wheeled in as needed.

AV750Every room, as far as I can recall, was equipped with a radio, although it was rarely used.  The radio, shown here, was the Newcomb Model AV-750.  This was an 8-tube AM FM receiver, and was obviously built for severe service.   I’m sure I’m the only kid who noticed, but it had a connection on the back for an external AM antenna and ground.  I was always jealous of that radio, since I dreamed of all the exotic broadcast band stations it would pull in if connected to an external antenna.  There was also a connection on back for audio input, so it could be used as an audio amplifier.

I’m not positive, but I believe this Audiotronics phonograph was the standard issue model in the Minneapolis schools.  Again, I believe one was issued to each classroom, and they saw a bit more use than the radio.

The televisions were made not far from the school.  Setchell-Carlson made some consumer radios in the 1940’s, and TV‘s in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  They were never a big name nationally, although they did have a strong presence in their home state of Minnesota.  By the 1970’s, they had abandoned the consumer market, but they continued to make the institutional models shown above.

There’s a good history of the company in the October 2008 issue of Radio Age.

bc1206

Photo courtesy of Ian O’Toole, VK2ZIO, Kurrajong Radio Museum. Used by permission.

The company was founded in St. Paul in 1928 by Bart Setchell and Carl Donald Carlson as “Karadio Corporation.” As the name suggests, the company manufactured auto radios. Setchell claimed later to have been the “first” to use vibrators to power the car radio. The author of this article disputes that claim, but it is clear that Setchell-Carlson was one of the pioneers. In 1934, the company became Setchell Carlson, Inc., and made a few radios before the war. During World War II, the company was a defense contractor, and made products for the military, the most famous of which was the aviation receiver shown here. (For more information on this device, see my earlier post.)

In 1949, the company moved to New Brighton,

A Setchell Carlson TV from 1954, back when people apparently dressed up to watch TV. Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1954

A Setchell Carlson TV from 1954, back when people apparently dressed up to watch TV. Popular Mechanics, Dec. 1954

Minnesota, and went into the TV business, which lasted until the 1960’s. At its peak, the company employed about 500, and also had a plant in Arden Hills.  Setchell was later inducted into the Minnesota Broadcasting Hall of Fame.

One final note on the audio-visual equipment in use at my elementary school.  The Minnesota Historical Society has this photo  of the school’s public address system.  The photo is dated about 1955, but based upon the one or two times I saw it, this is the same console that was in use in the 1960’s and 1970’s when I was a student there.  Interestingly, the caption of this photo bills it as a “school broadcasting lab” and shows students at the mike.  I never recall the console being used by students, certainly not on a routine basis.

The couple of times I saw this, I was quite impressed.  It was in a separate room off the office, and in addition to the PA console, there was a radio receiver.  I remember one dial being for the standard AM band.  The other dial was calibrated in some numbers that did not look at all familiar to me.  In retrospect, it’s possible that they were FM channel numbers, which were used for a short time on some FM receivers.
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Mississippi River Open, December 1864

ChicagoTribune12031864A hundred fifty years ago today, December 2, 1864, the weather in Minnesota was warm and rainy.  And the Mississippi River was open to navigation, which was totally unprecedented this late in the season.  This dispatch from St. Paul was in the Chicago Tribune the next day.  It reported a boat leaving from LaCrosse, Wisconsin, to St. Paul.

Minnesota's Road Network in 1860, Minnesota Historical Society.

Minnesota’s Road Network in 1860, Minnesota Historical Society.

There was no rail connection until 1867, when a line was built to Iowa and an all-rail route was available until Chicago.  A few rudimentary roads were in place, but the only means of economically transporting goods and passengers was by river.  So when a warm spell thawed the river in December, the pioneers were eager to take advantage of it.

 

 

References

Roads and the Settlement of Minnesota, Minnesota History, September 1940.



Red Owl Makes a Cameo Appearance, 1964

 

MotorcycleRedOwlThis review for a Harley-Davidson 50 cc motorcycle appeared fifty years ago, in the November, 1964, issue of Popular Mechanics. The photo shows how easily the little bike can weave in and out of congested traffic.

But what caught my eye was the Red Owl truck in the background.  In the 1960’s, Red Owl was one of the big grocery chains in the Twin Cities,  At its peak, it had 441 stores in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. The name was acquired by Supervalu in the 1980’s and eventually phased out.  The name and familiar logo lives on, however, at at least one store in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

 


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