100 years ago in Yakima: Daredevil’s leap from hot-air balloon turns deadly
From our archives, 100 years ago
Aerial daredevil George B. Rollo, 24, of Spokane, was at a North Yakima fair, performing a stunt he had performed many times: leaping from a hot-air balloon and parachuting to the earth.
An eyewitness reported what happened next:
“He was between 3,500 feet and 4,500 feet when he cut loose,” said Mrs. Frank Brooks. “The first parachute opened perfectly but the jar or jolt of its opening either broke the ropes or the shackle. The other three parachutes came down with the body. … I’ll never get over the sight of the parachutes and the body hurtling toward the earth. The Yakima police found that the keys in Mr. Rollo’s pockets were bent double by the impact that depressed the earth more than a foot.”
Mrs. Brooks, the manager of the aviation company that supplied attractions to fairs in the Northwest, said Rollo already had made three other successful jumps at the North Yakima fair and had “used four parachutes each time in returning to the earth.”
The owner of the company, B.C. McClellan, said Rollo had been performing stunts for six years and was especially careful and cautious. He said he was the first man ever to use three parachutes, and the first that used four.
“When a ‘kite jumper’ as careful as he gets killed, I guess it’s time I threw my balloon and parachutes in the river,” said McClellan.
“The idea that he risked his life for $5 is preposterous,” said McClellan. “Like other balloon men I employ, he was paid on a commission basis and each jump paid him considerably more than $5.”
From the political beat: Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, in an interview with The Spokesman-Review’s Ashmun Brown in Washington, D.C., said it was a matter of when, not if, Congress would pass a law requiring universal military training for all young men.
The senator said his mail had run solidly against the bill when he first introduced it, with writers accusing him of trying to “impose conscription on a free people.” His was the only vote in favor of the bill in the Senate Military Affairs Committee.
Undaunted, the senator said he felt sentiment swinging his way. “I attribute that to the magnificent and patriotic work that has been done by the newspapers in their campaign of education on the subject,” he said.
Chamberlain said the need for universal military training wasn’t so much to defend the nation, but to boost the fitness level of its young men.
An added benefit would be discipline, “without which there can be no well-rounded and wholesome life. We would teach a respect for and an appreciation of law and order, something very largely lacking in our young men of today.”