Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation

Thermopolis, Wyoming

Heroes of the Sky: Adventures in Early Flight

It is hard to imagine a time when air travel was not a part of everyday life. But during the early years of flight - before jets and sleek commercial planes - people looked at airplanes with a sense of awe and wonder. They would rush outdoors to wave at the pilots - and often the pilots waved back.

"Heroes of the Sky: Adventures in Early Flight, 1903-1939" celebrates the first remarkable decades of flight. It opens Sept. 1 at Old West Wax Museum.

The exhibit features stories of the fliers, businessmen and inventors who transformed airplanes from the novel inventions of tinkerers into sophisticated machines of transportation, commerce and war.

Today, commercial planes may rule the skies, but there are still uses for the smaller compact planes, particularly in rural areas - fire-fighting, crop dusting, wildlife census counts, pipeline flying, medical life-flights and sight-seeing.

The exhibit includes historic artifacts, documentary videos, graphic panels, early posters, books and hands-on activities. It is made possible through a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities, NEH on the Road. It was originally organized in a larger format for The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. Mid-America Arts Alliance, Kansas City, worked with NEH to condense it for smaller museums throughout the country. Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation worked with the NEH and Mid-America Alliance to bring the exhibit to Wyoming.

Heroes will be on exhibit through Sept. 28. In addition to the NEH exhibit, material on area pilots is being gathered for a reception and exhibit at the Hot Springs County Museum.

School tours and guided tours will be available.