First Posted: 4/6/2015
I have a plan to bring peace between Ohio and Connecticut.
The two states are at war over who made the first successful airplane flight.
To sum it up as only an Ohioan can: Just about everyone in the world, outside Connecticut, knows that the Wright brothers of Dayton were the first to fly — in 1903.
Connecticut has amassed flimsy evidence that its own Gustave Whitehead beat them by two years.
In 2013, Connecticut actually passed a law that removed the Wrights, and installed Whitehead, as the honoree of Connecticut Powered Flight Day.
Now, the Ohio legislature is proposing to answer the affront with House Concurrent Resolution 8, a satisfyingly blunt measure that says, “Resolved, that Gustave Whitehead did not fly a powered, heavier-than-air machine of his own design on August 14, 1901, or on any other date.”
It also says, “A publicized digital image, purported to be an enhanced copy of a photograph that shows Gustave Whitehead’s 1901 machine in flight, reveals only indistinct shapes.”
So there.
Although it’s fun to needle Connecticut, I must point out that Ohio has also been known to lose its head in pursuit of undeserved bragging rights.
For example, an effort to name the hamburger the “state food” has been introduced in the Ohio legislature at least once.
It was inspired by the disputed claim that Frank and Charles Menches of Summit County invented the hamburger in 1885.
Their descendants still make hamburgers at restaurants in northeastern Ohio, so I respect their sandwich expertise. Nevertheless, “The Hamburger” — a 2008 book published by Yale University Press — cast serious doubt on the Menches claim, noting that ground-beef recipes at least 100 years older have been found.
Besides, several other states lay claim to having invented the hamburger. One of them is, yes, Connecticut.
Connecticut’s hamburger story (that the proprietor of Louis’ Lunch in New Haven slapped some beef on bread in 1900 at the request of a customer in a hurry) is no more convincing than Ohio’s (that the Menches brothers were inspired to make a beef sandwich after they ran out of pork while selling food at a fair in Hamburg, New York).
Nevertheless, I propose a peace deal.
Ohio halfheartedly supports Connecticut’s shaky “first hamburger” claim in exchange for Connecticut dropping its silly Wright brothers denialism.
Granted, first airplane is far more prestigious than first hamburger. (People flock to air shows; I’ve never heard of anyone going to a hamburger show.)
But, given Connecticut’s lighter-than-air evidence, I think it should take what it can get.
