Glenn Curtiss & Birthplace of Naval Aviation

On the clear winter morning of January 26, 1911, aviation pioneer Glenn Hammond Curtiss rolled his newly engineered experimental hydroaeroplane down the gentle shores of Spanish Bight on North Island. With crowds of hotel guests and military observers watching from Coronado verandas, Curtiss opened the throttle of his 50-horsepower engine. The aircraft accelerated across the calm tidal waters, lifted gracefully into the air, circled the bay at an altitude of 200 feet for over a mile, and touched down softly on the water before taxiing back to the sandspit.

This historic flight represented the first successful take-off and landing of a seaplane in human history. Curtiss had accepted a free land lease from the Coronado Beach Company and John D. Spreckels to establish America's first winter military aviation training encampment on the isolated scrublands of North Island. Recognizing the enormous strategic implications of naval flight, Curtiss offered free flight training to officers of the United States Army and Navy.

Among his very first students was United States Navy Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson, who became Naval Aviator No. 1. Curtiss's groundbreaking work in Coronado waters proved to the world that airplanes could operate in direct coordination with naval fleets. His experiments culminated in the official designation of North Island as the Birthplace of Naval Aviation and transformed San Diego into the flight capital of the Pacific.