Token - National Air Races Cleveland

Reverse

Public Auditorium
legend surrounding

Script: Latin

Lettering:
OFFICIAL SOUVENIR OF THE
AIR CLASSIC OF THE CENTURY
BASTIAN BROS. CO. ROCH. N.Y.

Edge

Plain

Comment

History of the Cleveland National Air Races

In 1920, the idea of an Air Show first came to America from Europe when Joseph Pulitzer, publisher of the New York World, put up the money for a race on Long Island’s Mitchell Field. Pulitzer’s goal was to reawaken interest in aviation, which was suffering from post WWI apathy.

The event circulated to different cities for nine years and was finally brought to Cleveland in 1929 by a group of local businessmen headed by Louis W. Greve and Frederick C. Crawford. Greve was president of the Cleveland Pneumatic Tool Company, which made the hydraulic undercarriages that held the wheels on airplanes. Crawford was general manager and later president of Thompson Products Inc., now a part of TRW Inc. Thompson Products developed the experimental sodium-cooled cylinders, which enabled Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis to reach France.
https://www.clevelandairshow.com/about-us/national-air-racing-history/