Wrecking Ball Applied Despite Weeks Of Protest From Supporters

As the controversy about whether the Wright Brothers or Gustave Whitehead was actually first to fly a heavier-than-air machine in a controlled manner continues to simmer ... a developer in Connecticut showed no love for those who believe Whitehead should be in the history books rather than Orville and Wilbur.

The developer on Monday took a wrecking ball to the 100-year-old house that Whitehead built and occupied in Fairfield, CT, despite the weeks-long protests from supporters of the alternative theory about who was first to fly, according to a report from Reuters.

Fairfield First Selectman Mark Tetreau said that developer Gary Tenk was entitled to tear down the house to make way for a new structure. "The house was in foreclosure and purchase by the developer," Tetreau said, adding that the town was required by law to issue the demolition permit.

But supporters of the "Whitehead-was-first" theory say the home should have been preserved as an historic landmark. Many in the region say their relatives living at the time saw Whitehead fly, and that the witnesses numbered in the hundreds. But there were obviously no smartphones to capture photos or video of the event.

Tetreau said that the town plans to save some of the material from the demolished house and hopes a replica can be built at some point in the future.

(Public domain image: Line drawing  which accompanied the full-page August 18, 1901, feature report of claimed eyewitness account of Gustave Whitehead flying with power for a distance of "one half mile" on August 14, 1901.)

FMI: www.fairfieldct.org