Mabel Cody’s Flying Circus is popular Florida attraction
Dazzling aerial displays fire the public’s imagination
“She Flirts with Death!”
We tend to think of the barnstorming aerial performances of the early 20th century simply as amusements, but nothing did more to popularize aviation and fire up America’s enthusiasm for airplanes than these thrilling stunt performances. One such barnstorming act, Mabel Cody’s Flying Circus, was often in Florida in the early 1920s, where our hard-packed sand beaches and flat empty fields provided natural landing strips. Mabel, who claimed to be the niece of the famous Buffalo Bill Cody (but apparently wasn’t) wasn’t a pilot herself, but she organized the stunt show and was a fearless stunt-woman. Along with her fellow circus crew, she would do “wing dances,” auto-to-plane transfers, parachute drops and more. The circus performed at fairs and special events and drew large audiences. George Merrick invited Mabel to Coral Gables in 1922 to promote his growing new planned community and Glenn Curtiss and James Bright asked her to “HI-A-LE-AH” for the same reason. The circus was shut down after Mabel suffered a fall during a car-to-plane transfer in 1924 but Mabel continued to be involved in barnstorming events with other performers until stricter airline regulations and the Great Depression led to the end of the era.
- https://miamiherald.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-herald-herald-22-march-1921/165245275
- https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-herald-herald-29-jan-1922-ma/172643836/