News Stories 100 Years Ago

National Aero Meet

December 25, 26 & 27, 1920, marked the three-day National Winter Air Tournament at the new Daugherty Municipal Airfield. More than 2,500 paid admissions were recorded each day.

A wireless telephonic device was among the various new inventions on display. By means of a radio telephone, listeners were able to directly receive progress reports on the 100-mile scratch race, as well as the 80-mile handicap race. Nineteen-year-old stunt walker Wesley May performed on the wings of aviator Earl Daugherty’s plane. May claimed a world’s record by standing on his head on the wing of Daugherty’s craft while the plane was landing.

Other exhibits which attracted considerable attention were: a 220-horsepower French “Spad” plane, used extensively by American aviators overseas; a huge working model of a 700-pound Liberty motor; the Goodyear blimp; a Boeing seaplane; two huge passenger planes; and a $15,000 all-metal aeroplane (as airplanes were called then).

Daugherty felt the meet was monumental for two reasons: first, it was relatively accident free. There had been two forced landings during the three-day event, but the aeroplanes had came down safely. Daugherty felt that this was due to improvements in aircraft and to the experience gained by pilots during the past decade, especially during the war.

The meet also proved Long Beach had one of the best flying fields in the United States. Aviators who had experience with most of the big air fields in the United States and in Europe, declared that the local course was one of the best.

Love Pirate

Twenty-eight-year-old Jack Dew had a way with women. It wasn’t his looks – 5 feet 8 inches in height, weight about 150 pounds, ordinary appearance, evasive dark eyes, prominent nose, teeth large irregular, small ears – it was his conversational and persuasive abilities that drew women to him. Even from his cell in the Long Beach jail following his arrest for the alleged embezzlement of $2,500 ($31,300 today) in diamonds from Miss Margaret McConnick and Mrs. John W. Redman, the two sisters who caused his arrest were loath to prosecute the dapper youth. Nor was Mrs. W. E. Smith of Pomona, from whom he allegedly “borrowed” $300, or Mrs. W. C. Hunter who gave him $365 ($4,570 today) when he told her he needed the money to marry her 17- year-old daughter, June. How did he do it?

When asked about his profession he claimed he was a medical student. Police disagreed, saying he was a fast worker with a lot of nerve, if a profession could be assigned to him it would be as a “wholesaler in love.”

Authorities uncovered hundreds of love letters addressed to him from girls who were pining their hearts away for him from the Atlantic to the Pacific. One poor, little, forsaken maid said she knelt before a lighted candle and prayed for him before going to bed at night.

On June 5, 1920, Jack R. Dew “love pirate,” held in the Long Beach jail for two weeks was a free man. The two Long Beach sisters had received their diamonds back, and relatives of Dew back east agreed to send him money to pay back the other “loans.” All refused to press charges. Poor June Hunter, who he had promised to marry, was left behind as Dew returned to New York, allegedly to re-enter medical school. 

Claudine Burnett is a retired Long Beach Public Library librarian who compiled the library’s Long Beach History Index. In her research, she found many forgotten, interesting stories about Long Beach and Southern California which she has published in 11 books as well as in monthly blogs. You can access information about her books and read her blogs at www.claudineburnettbooks.com.