The Larned, Kansas Tiller and Toiler posed that question on the front page of its October 14, 1910 edition. The paper, the editor reported, had received a letter from Charles Scott, son of former Larned resident Colonel William Scott and representative for the Boore Carburetor Company, who asked whether Larned might be interested in holding an aeroplane exhibition.
Scott was offering the services of William Evans - now styled Captain Evans, following the example of his hero and new mentor, Captain Thomas Baldwin. “Capt. Evans,” the paper reported, “has a new bi-plane, very powerful, and can fly 500 feet high.” Scott had seen Evans and Baldwin fly in Kansas City and felt that he could take advantage of a limited window of opportunity before the men left for the coast to attend the 1910 exhibition at Los Angeles.
It was also an opportunity for Larned to get ahead of other Kansas towns. Evans and Baldwin were scheduled to exhibit at Hutchinson “and one or two of the larger towns in Kansas,” but Scott, who had recently equipped Evans' plane with a carburetor, felt sure he could persuade the men to abandon Hutchinson for Larned if the townspeople were interested.
Next: West of Topeka and East of Denver
