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Knoxville's neglected place in two current centennial celebrations

by Jack Neely

I can't hear people talk about the Lewis and Clark bicentennial without mourning lost opportunities. Knoxville could have been there. Though it was a town of only maybe 500 in 1803, it was a state capital and, moreover, a provisioning depot for other westward expeditions. Knoxville could have at least a point on Lewis and Clark's well-worn map, and maybe the launchpad for the most daring expedition of the 19th century. According to Stephen Ambrose's 1996 book, Undaunted Courage, Knoxville was one of four setting-off locations Lewis and Clark might have considered, and it was, moreover, the route Meriwether Lewis originally favored. From here he was going to gather men at South West Point, the fort near Kingston, and take the road to Nashville, the then-even-smaller town on the Cumberland, where he expected local boatmakers to equip them for their trip up the Mississippi to the Missouri.

But the Nashville boatmakers didn't come through—see, before Nashville was swiping our later claims to glory, it was just mucking them up—and there were some disappointments connected to the personnel at South West Point, too. So Meriwether and Co. launched the expedition from our more ambitious Northern twin, Pittsburgh.

Which probably made perfect sense. But where were Knoxville's convention and tourism promoters of 1803? Asleep at the wheel, obviously. It seems like a phone call or two should have straightened things out.

Later, Knoxville-area soldiers expected to join the expedition didn't show up. We can console ourselves that when Lewis and Clark presented themselves to various Western Indian tribes as representatives of the "17 Great Nations" of the East, we know that Knoxville was the capital of one of them.

On the subject of centennials, America has a big one coming up in December. I hope, in all the obligatory commemorations, there will be some mention of a local man who was there with the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, if briefly.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a feature story about three little-known pre-Wright pioneers of aviation who lived in this region. Two of them, Knoxville's John Crozier and Morristown's Melville Murrell, were eccentrics who fabricated peculiar pre-Wright contraptions: Crozier's ca. 1890s invention was a sort of biplane with waterwheel-style propulsion devices; Murrell's earlier design mimicked the flapping wings of a bird. They only barely got off the ground.

The third aeronaut was an eccentric, too, but Edward Chalmers Huffaker was a more scientific man closer to the mainstream of aviation technology, and may have influenced the course of the Wrights' triumph—mainly through his theories, published in the 1890s, about the importance of wing warp.

Huffaker was born along the French Broad River in what was then western Sevier County, but is now Eastern Knox County. A bright kid with a reputation as a mathematical genius, he went to college at Emory and Henry, and the young man's speculations about flight impressed the likes of Samuel P. Langley and Octave Chanute; Chanute once visited him at his home in Chuckey. On Chanute's recommendation, Huffaker spent part of the summer of 1901 at Kitty Hawk with a couple of bicycle mechanics from Ohio. It was an ill-starred trip: a thunderstorm destroyed the paper model he had painstakingly assembled here. Worse, Huffaker and the Wrights disliked each other intensely. But aviation historians see the influence of Huffaker's theories on the Wright's early designs.

Next month—on Nov. 8, to be precise, and just in time for the Wright centennial—the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame, which is connected to the Tennessee Museum of Aviation in Sevierville, will induct Huffaker with a plaque detailing his unusual contributions. Officially sanctioned by the state legislature in 2001—it was, to the best of my recollection, the only worthwhile thing they did that year—the Tennessee Aviation Hall of Fame installed the first four inductees in 2002.

I tried to learn more via the museum's web site, which is certainly one of the more stimulating websites I've encountered lately. The problem is when I open it, air-raid sirens start whining, and it seems just like London during the blitz. I couldn't find the volume control, and the sirens renewed in vigor every time I chose an option. It was plenty exciting, no question, but all the commotion alarmed my office mates, several of whom were headed for the bomb shelter in the basement, and there was talk of a blackout, so I felt obliged to abort.

Instead of navigating any further on that dangerous website, I just called Bob Minter, well-known aviator and co-founder of both the Tennessee Aviation Association and the aforementioned Hall of Fame. Minter confirmed Huffaker's upcoming ordination. "Huffaker may very well be the first aerodynamicist there ever was—in the powered-flight era, anyway," says Minter. He also told me about an upcoming book about Huffaker. Its title reflects the Wright Brothers' fussy point of view: it's called The Unwelcome Assistant, by Julia Hensley, and will be published by Overmountain Press in Johnson City.

Huffaker may never have gotten as much respect in his lifetime.