- Aerial view, circa 1920, looking north along Fairfax Avenue at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard. An aviation fair in underway at Chaplin Airfield. DeMille Airfield in located in the upper left corner. (Water and Power Associates.)
When the Miracle Mile was LAX
In the first decade of the 20th Century flight captured the imagination of the world. Southern California played a key role in the invention of the aviation industry, beginning in 1910 when the first American air show was staged at Dominguez Field (in what is now the City of Carson). The exhibition drew leading innovators and pilots from around the globe – as well as a quarter million spectators who marveled at the daredevil displays of these flying machines.
Prominent members of the Hollywood community were soon bitten by the flying bug, the most notable being the famed director Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) and Sydney Chaplin (1885-1965), the older half-brother of Charlie Chaplin. Although business competitors, they pioneered what would become the modern airline industry by offering the first scheduled commercial flights in the world.
DeMille, a founder of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was the most commercially successful director of his time. His credits ranged from the Squaw Man to the Greatest Show on Earth and the Ten Commandments.
In 1918 DeMille founded the Mercury Aviation Company and built his first airfield, DeMille Field No. 1, across from the present location of Fairfax High School. Soon DeMille build a second airfield, DeMille Field No. 2, and moved his enterprise to the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue (which was then known as Crescent Avenue).
Mercury Aviation operated a fleet of surplus World War I “Jennys” and offered popular sightseeing trips and charter trips. The airfield featured a gas station at the intersection of Fairfax and Wilshire that fueled automobiles on one side and airplanes on the other side.
Mercury purchased its first new aircraft in the summer of 1920, a Junkers that was delivered to DeMille Field by famed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker. In May 1921 Mercury launched regular scheduled flights carrying passengers to Santa Catalina Island, San Diego, and San Francisco, and other locales – becoming the first scheduled airline with multiple destinations in the world. The first passenger flight from New York to Los Angeles landed at DeMille Field No. 2.
In the two years or so it was in operation, Mercury transported over 25,000 passengers without a single injury – but flying was expensive and still too much of a novelty to be fully embraced by the traveling public. The Mercury Aviation Company proved to be unprofitable and DeMille shut down the airline by 1922.
Although no passengers were ever injured during the operation of Mercury Aviation, two of the most famous barnstormers of the era, Ormer “Lock” Locklear and Milton “Skeets” Elliott, dramatically perished performing an aerial stunt for a silent picture filmed at DeMille Field in August 1920. The two pilots were nationally acclaimed for their aerobatics and daring-do. Locklear was the first man to transfer mid-air from one plane to another. Hollywood soon beckoned and Locklear was cast as the leading man of “The Skywayman.”
The dramatic climax of the film required Elliott to dive a plane, carrying himself and Locklear, into some nearby oil derricks and appear to crash. The stunt was shot a night so that the giant floodlights illuminating the maneuver for the camera could be switched off at the last second to conceal Elliott pulling out of the dive, but the electricians missed their cue and the lights stayed on. Elliott, blinded by the bright lights, crashed the spiraling plane and both men died instantly. Not inclined to waste a spectacular stunt, particular one as realistic as this, it was utilized in the finished film.
Mercury’s competitor in the air travel business was across the street at Chaplin Airfield, which was founded in 1919 by Sydney Chaplin. Chaplin was a stage performer and silent film actor before becoming his far more famous sibling’s business manager.
Chaplin Airfield was located on leased property that is now bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, Fairfax Avenue, and San Vincente Boulevard. The Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation advertised that it “maintained a fleet of newest Curtis one and two-passenger aeroplanes, large shops with complete equipment and hangars for our own ships as well as those belonging to business firms and individuals.”
The company offered observation flights for $10 and round-trip flights to San Diego for $150 (at a time when the average wage was $1,200 per/year). Obviously, the cost of air travel was very steep and Chaplin’s enterprise had a brief life span. Around 1920 Chaplin sold out to Emory H. Rogers, a business partner, who renamed it Rogers Field.
Rogers Field was touted as the largest airfield in the west and continued in operation for about ten years. Rogers offered free use of the field to the City of Los Angeles as a municipal airport, but the surrounding real estate was rapidly becoming too valuable.
In 1922 a developer named J. Harvey McCarthy began work on a residential district along the San Vicente Boulevard line of the Pacific Electric Railway. He utilized a derivative of his own surname and called the development Carthay Center. That same year another developer, A. W. Ross, and his partner, Hector N. Zahn, paid the then outlandish sum of $54,000 to acquire 18 acres of land along a dirt road that would become an extension of Wilshire Boulevard. The parcel, between La Brea and (by then) Fairfax Avenues, was ridiculed as “Ross’s Folly.” It is known today as the Miracle Mile.
By 1931 both DeMille Field and Rogers Field had disappeared from street maps and the Miracle Mile’s brief – but important – role in the creation of the commercial airline industry was over.
Miracle Mile Aviation History Photograph Gallery
Click on image to begin slideshow:
- Composite photograph of early-model biplanes, a monoplane, a dirigible, and a hot-air balloon passing by bleachers filled with spectators at the 1910 Dominguez Field Air Meet. The first air show in the United States, it was held at Dominguez Field in what is now the City of Carson. (Water and Power Associates)
- Demille Field No. 1 was located at Melrose and Fairfax. Cecil B. DeMille soon moved his aviation business to Demille Field No. 2 at Wilshire and Fairfax. Photograph circa 1918.
- Dirigible landing at Demille Field, circa 1919. (GeneralAviationNews.com)
- DeMille Field No. 2, circa 1919. Enlargement of previous photograph. The airfield was located on the northwest corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax (then Crescent) Avenue.
- Aerial view, circa 1920, looking north along Fairfax Avenue at the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard. An aviation fair in underway at Chaplin Airfield. DeMille Airfield in located in the upper left corner. (USC Digital Library)
- DeMille Air Field No. 2, circa 1919. (Water and Power Associates)
- Famed film director Cecil B. DeMille in pilot’s garb, circa 1919. (Water and Power Associates)
- Cecil B. DeMille (left) and his flying instructor Al Wilson (right), circa 1918. (Simanaitissays.com)
- Advertisement promoting the Mercury Aviation Company, circa 1920. (Water and Power Associates)
- Aerial view of the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, showing Rogers Airport, 1920. The towers of oil siphons fill the expanse of cleared land above the intersection of the two roads. A few striped display tents have been pitched in the clearing below them. There is a possibility that the road on the lower right corner is what eventually became Olympic. The diagonal dirt road above it is what became San Vicente blvd. The road that goes from left to right midway up the photo is Wilshire, and the one that intersects it Fairfax, which at that time may still have been called Crescent Avenue. (USC Digital Library.)
- An undated painting by Ted Grohs of Omar “Lock: Locklear doing a headstand on the wing of a Jenny above the De Mille & Chaplin Airports on Wilshire Boulevard and Crescent Avenue (now Fairfax Avenue), circa 1920.
- Advertisement for the Syd Chaplin Aircraft Corporation featuring their schedule of flights, circa 1919. (Water and Power Associates)
- Aerial view of Chaplin/Rogers Airport, circa 1920. Wilshire Boulevard is the tree lined street; Fairfax runs from the left to upper right corner.
- Rogers Airport was created in 1919 as Chaplin Airfield; Emory Rogers purchased the business from Sydney Chaplin and renamed the airfleid. Photograph dated 1922. (USC Digital Library.)
- Snapshot of a young man named “Walt” posing in front of an airplane at Rogers Airport, circa 1920. (Skyscraperpage.com)
- Signs at Rogers Airport, circa 1929. (USC Digital Library)
- Ruth Eder and party at Rogers Airport, 1928. (Dick Whittington Collection; USC Digital Library)
- Photograph of an airplane parked at Rogers Airport with Rogers Aircraft building in the background, circa 1922. The airplane sits facing the right in the foreground, bearing the emblem of a star with wings on its side. Behind it stands the “Rogers Aircraft Inc.” building bearing the same logo. The ground is bare of grass, and a few trees and metal towers can be seen in the background. Airplane shown may have been manufactured by the company. Rogers Airport was at Wilshire Boulevard and Crescent Street (now Fairfax). Emory H. Rogers acquired the field from Syd Chaplin in 1920. The Chaplin/Rogers airport was in an oil field, that’s why oil towers can be barely seen in the background. (Caption and photograph courtesy of USC Digital Library)
- Memorial Day Air Circus at De Mille Field, 1919. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive)
- “The Skywayman” film poster, 1920. The Skywayman is a lost five-reel 1920 American silent film directed by James P. Hogan and produced and distributed by Fox Film Corporation. The film stars noted aerial stunt pilot Ormer Locklear, and co-starring Louise Lovely. After having appeared in The Great Air Robbery (1919), a film that showcased his aerial talents, Locklear, considered the foremost “aviation stunt man in the world”, was reluctant to return to the air show circuit.[1] During the production, Locklear and his co-pilot Milton “Skeets” Elliot died after crashing during a night scene. The Skywayman was subsequently released shortly after, capitalizing on their deaths. (Wikipedia)
- Ground view of Rogers Airfield on the northwest corner of Fairfax and Wilshire., circa 1920. Mercury Aviation at DeMille Field No. 2 can be seen in the background. (Water and Power Associates)
- View looking north over the wing of a plane showing the intersection of Crescent Ave (now Fairfax) and Wilshire, circa 1922. A crowded airfield is seen below. In the distance oil derricks straddle Fairfax where 6th Street is located today. In the far background at the foothills can be seen a built-up Hollywood. (Water and Power Associates)
- DeMille Field No. 2, circa 1920. (Water and Power Associates)
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