CIVIL WAR BALLOON

AIRED: Season 3, Episode 3
REPEATED: Season 5, Episode 6
THE DETECTIVE: Wes Cowan
THE PLACE: Midland, Michigan

THE CASE:

A collector may have purchased a fragment of American aviation history. At first glance, it's a simple piece of frayed material in a frame.

But on the back of the frame are the words, "A piece of Prof. Lowe's Aeronautical balloon 'Enterprise'... after it was destroyed upon landing ... in 1862."

Could this be an artifact from the country's first military airship?

Wes heads to Washington, D.C. and Troy, New York to learn more about the ambitious and fascinating professor who launched the country's first aeronautic division by inflating his hot air balloon, The Enterprise, on the lawn of President Lincoln's White House.

Civil War Balloon (PDF File 105K)
(requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

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