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Over a Barrel · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Niagara Falls isn't the tallest waterfall in the world.
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  Speaker 1: There are roughly five others that are taller, but Niagara
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  Speaker 1: stands out from all of them for a few specific reasons. First,
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  Speaker 1: it turns a lot of water, with over six million
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  Speaker 1: cubic feet going over the crest line every minute, and
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  Speaker 1: with it also goes sixty tons of minerals that are
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  Speaker 1: dissolved into a fine powder, giving the water it's unique
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  Speaker 1: green color. Though over eight million people visit the falls
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  Speaker 1: each year, it's much more than just a tourist site.
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  Speaker 1: The Niagara River provides drinking water and hydro electricity to
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  Speaker 1: over a million people in both the United States and Canada.
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  Speaker 1: The falls draw many people to their majestic and breathtaking waters.
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  Speaker 1: These are folks who come to admire what the Earth
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  Speaker 1: has naturally created and what has endured for thousands of years.
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  Speaker 1: But Niagara also attracts attention seekers who want nothing more
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  Speaker 1: than to go down in history for dangerous and foolish stunts,
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  Speaker 1: and down is exactly where many end up, including one
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  Speaker 1: Charles Stevens. Stevens was born in eighteen sixty two and
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  Speaker 1: he was from Bristol, England, where he worked as a
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  Speaker 1: barber to support his wife Annie and their eleven children. However,
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  Speaker 1: despite his steady employment and family obligations, the haircutter longed
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  Speaker 1: for fame and fortune. When he wasn't in his barbershop,
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  Speaker 1: the fifty eight year old Stevens could often be found
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  Speaker 1: leaping from tall points with a parachute on his back,
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  Speaker 1: or high diving into a pool of water. His nickname
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  Speaker 1: the Demon Barber of Bristol, most likely due to his
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  Speaker 1: dare devilish nature and not because he liked to kill
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  Speaker 1: clients with straight razors or anything like that. Eventually, England
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  Speaker 1: felt like small potatoes for the kind of stunts that
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  Speaker 1: Stevens wanted to perform. He needed bigger, more exciting places
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  Speaker 1: with bigger, more exciting audiences, and so in nineteen twenty
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  Speaker 1: he packed his things and hopped across the pond to America,
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  Speaker 1: where a new opportunity awaited him. You guessed it, Niagara Falls.
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  Speaker 1: His plan was simple. Stevens was going to travel down
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  Speaker 1: the Niagara River in a barrel until he reached the
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  Speaker 1: Horseshoe Falls, where he would go over the edge and
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  Speaker 1: emerge from below victorious. Of course, he wouldn't have been
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  Speaker 1: the first person to accomplish this. That honor belonged to
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  Speaker 1: Annie Taylor, who had performed her own version of the
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  Speaker 1: stunt two decades earlier. In nineteen eleven, Bobby Leech did
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  Speaker 1: it in a metal barrel of his own design. This time, however,
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  Speaker 1: Stevens was going to do it his way. He would
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  Speaker 1: travel over the fall is in a modified Russian oak barrel.
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  Speaker 1: Bobby Leach tried to advise him, telling the would be
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  Speaker 1: daredevil that he shouldn't attempt the drop until his barrel
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  Speaker 1: design was just right. Stevens ignored him, however, believing Leech
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  Speaker 1: just didn't want him to have any of the spotlight.
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  Speaker 1: Leech then reached out to another performer named William Hill Senior,
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  Speaker 1: who went by the nickname Red and had traversed the
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  Speaker 1: Niagara River in a steel barrel himself. Red knew the
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  Speaker 1: falls well, and encouraged Stevens to literally test the waters
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  Speaker 1: with an empty version of his Russian oak barrel to
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  Speaker 1: see how it would fare. The demon barber still wouldn't listen. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: at eight fifteen in the morning on July eleven of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, Charles Stevens loaded himself into his barrel. It
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  Speaker 1: had been outfitted with arm straps so that he could
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  Speaker 1: brace himself inside. He also tied an anvil to his
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  Speaker 1: feet for better steering, and despite his protests, he agreed
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  Speaker 1: to take along with him a portable oxygen tank. Forty
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  Speaker 1: minutes later, after traveling down the river, the barrel went
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  Speaker 1: over the edge of the falls. Bobby Leach left just
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  Speaker 1: before it did, choosing not to witness the inevitable. The
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  Speaker 1: barrel hit the water hard and sent the anvil, still
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  Speaker 1: tied to Steven's feet, straight to the bottom. The barrel
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  Speaker 1: had blown apart. A rescue team looked for any sign
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  Speaker 1: of the daredevil, but couldn't find him. Instead, they found
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  Speaker 1: one of his arm straps that had been affixed to
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  Speaker 1: the inside of the barrel. How did they know that
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  Speaker 1: it had belonged to Steven's because they also found his
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  Speaker 1: arm still attached to it, burying a tattoo that read
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  Speaker 1: forget me not Annie. My guess is that she never did.
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  Speaker 1: It's probably safe to say that nobody who witnessed Charles
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  Speaker 1: Stevens go over the falls that day would have forgotten
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  Speaker 1: him either. Air travel has often been positioned as a
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  Speaker 1: way to get people from one place to another as
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  Speaker 1: quickly and as safe as possible. Of course, some people
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  Speaker 1: don't see it that way. For those brave souls, airplanes
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  Speaker 1: are meant for endurance. Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh made
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  Speaker 1: waves for their transatlantic solo flights, and the current record
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  Speaker 1: holders for the longest endurance flight traveled around the world
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  Speaker 1: in nine days on a single tank of gas. But
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  Speaker 1: one airplane had them all beat. It was designed to
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  Speaker 1: spend as much time in the air as possible without
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  Speaker 1: ever having to land, a feat that was seen as
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  Speaker 1: a gamble, which was probably why one man decided to
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  Speaker 1: try it in the first place. It started back in
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  Speaker 1: the late nineteen fifties, while Bob tim was working at
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  Speaker 1: the Hacienda Casino in Las Vegas. He repaired slot machines
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  Speaker 1: during a time when the Hacienda was fairly unpopular compared
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  Speaker 1: to other places on the Strip. It had positioned itself
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  Speaker 1: as a family friendly resorts amid a sea of mobster
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  Speaker 1: run hotels and casinos. The Hacienda lacked glitz, it lacked glamour,
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  Speaker 1: and most of all, it lacked customers. There was a
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  Speaker 1: reason it had earned the nickname the a Seed Heaven.
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  Speaker 1: The owners, Judy and Doc Bailey, were often on the
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  Speaker 1: hunt for new ways to drum up business, and they
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  Speaker 1: were not particular about where those ideas came from. If
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  Speaker 1: anyone at the Hacienda, be at the cooks or the maids,
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  Speaker 1: came up with a decent plan, the Bailey's were always
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  Speaker 1: ready to hear it. Tim had been a pilot in
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  Speaker 1: the Army and brought an idea to Doc. What if
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  Speaker 1: the Hacienda sponsored a record setting endurance flight. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: the record was held by two former Navy pilots who
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  Speaker 1: managed to stay in the air for forty six days
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  Speaker 1: in Tim thought that he could do better. Bailey was
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  Speaker 1: worried that the flight would be viewed unfavorably in the press,
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  Speaker 1: given that it was being done on behalf of a
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  Speaker 1: Las Vegas casino. Instead, he promised him that he would
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  Speaker 1: fund the whole project. Under the condition that any money
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  Speaker 1: had generated go to a cancer fund instead. Bailey even
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  Speaker 1: came up with the way to let people get in
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  Speaker 1: on the action. Donors could mail their checks along with
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  Speaker 1: a guess as to how many days the plane could
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  Speaker 1: stay airborne. The person who guessed the closest would win
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  Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars and the hacienda would get some much
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  Speaker 1: needed attention. So Tim brought on a copilot and a
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  Speaker 1: mechanic and the three of them got to work modifying
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  Speaker 1: Assessna one seventy two Skyhawk. The one seventy two came
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  Speaker 1: as a four seat, single engine plane, but it's paltry
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  Speaker 1: fuel tank only capable of carrying about forty seven gallons
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  Speaker 1: of fuel, needed some serious help. Tim affixed a ninety
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  Speaker 1: five gallon tank to the plane's belly, bringing the total
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  Speaker 1: capacity to one two gallons. The men also tweaked the
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  Speaker 1: engine system to allow for midair oil and filter changes
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  Speaker 1: as necessary. They then removed much of the interior to
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  Speaker 1: reduce weight and install the platform on one side that
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  Speaker 1: allowed the copilot better access to the gas tank when refueling.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, the refueling process was the trickiest part of
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  Speaker 1: the whole plan. It had to be done while the
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  Speaker 1: plane was still in the air. Landing was out of
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  Speaker 1: the question, so the men rigged up a hook attached
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  Speaker 1: to a rope that they could lower to a gas
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  Speaker 1: truck driving below. Someone would attach a hose to the hook,
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  Speaker 1: which was then winched up to the plane so that
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  Speaker 1: the co pilot could fill it. The hook was also
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  Speaker 1: used to bring up other things like food and a
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  Speaker 1: change of oil. The two pilots had basically built a
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  Speaker 1: flying treehouse. Unfortunately, their first few attempts to stay in
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  Speaker 1: the air were met with turbulence, The engine suffered exhaust problems,
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  Speaker 1: the men got on each other's nerves, and constant mechanical
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  Speaker 1: issues meant the Cessna could only stay in the air
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  Speaker 1: for a handful of days at a time. Meanwhile, to
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  Speaker 1: other pilots, Jim Hef and Bill Burkhardt had made news
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  Speaker 1: by keeping their Cessna airborne for fifty days, breaking the
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  Speaker 1: original record by four days. Tim and his crew made
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  Speaker 1: a few more modifications to the plane, and the co
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  Speaker 1: pilot was replaced with a man named John Wayne Cook,
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  Speaker 1: thirty three year old pilot and mechanic, not a bad
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  Speaker 1: combination to have on a long haul flight. One year
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  Speaker 1: had passed since Tim had started on the project. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: on December four, nineteen fifty eight, the Cessna took off
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  Speaker 1: from mccaren field, just across the way from the Hacienda.
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  Speaker 1: Meals for the pilots were made at the hotel each
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  Speaker 1: day by the cooks there. The food had to be
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  Speaker 1: chopped into small pieces, though, and poured into thermoss before
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  Speaker 1: being sent up to the plane. When the men had
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  Speaker 1: to go to the bathroom, they relied on a portable
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  Speaker 1: travel toilets and plastic bags, which were then dropped over
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  Speaker 1: the Nevada Desert. The plane also featured a sink so
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  Speaker 1: men could shave and brush their teeth. They bathed outside
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  Speaker 1: the plane, standing on the refueling platform and washing themselves
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  Speaker 1: with the bottle of water. Tim and Cook didn't fly
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  Speaker 1: across the country or even around the world. Their test
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  Speaker 1: was not of distance but of length, so they spent
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  Speaker 1: their time over Nevada close to home. By the time
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  Speaker 1: they finally landed on February seven of nineteen fifty nine,
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  Speaker 1: sixty four days later, they had clocked over one hundred
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand miles, performed one d twenty eight mid air refuelings,
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  Speaker 1: and broken the endurance record set months earlier. Today, the
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  Speaker 1: hus Cienda Resort and casino is long gone, but the
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  Speaker 1: plane that put it on the map is still around,
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  Speaker 1: on display at Harry Read International Airport in Nevada. It
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  Speaker 1: used to be called McCarron International Airport, and before that
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  Speaker 1: it was just known as McCarron Field, the same runway
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  Speaker 1: that launched two pilots in straight into the record books.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.