Kirjahaku

At the beginning of the twentieth century, aerialist Ivy Baldwin had achieved celebrity status as a premier tightrope walker, aeronaut and aviation pioneer. He executed astonishing and perilous performances across America and internationally, including Mexico and the Far East. First by flying balloons, he went on to pilot dirigibles and, finally, aircraft. In his later years in Colorado, he became famous for crossing canyons on a tightrope. Historian Jack Stokes Ballard deftly captures Baldwin's colorful and hazardous life from childhood runaway to aviation record holder.

Capt. Field E. Kindley, with the famous Eddie Rickenbacker, was one of America's foremost World War I flying aces. Like Rickenbacker's, Kindley's story is one of fierce dogfights, daring aerial feats, and numerous brushes with death. Yet unlike Rickenbacker's, Kindley's story has not been fully told until now. Field Kindley gained experience with the RAF before providing leadership for the U.S. Air Service. Kindley was the fourth-ranking American air ace; his exploits earned him a Distinguished Service Cross with Oak Leaf Cluster from the United States and a Distinguished Flying Cross from the British government. In February 1920, during a practice drill Kindley led, some enlisted men unwittingly entered the bombing target area. ""Buzzing"" the troops to warn them off the field, Kindley somehow lost control of his plane and died in the ensuing crash. Using arduously gathered primary materials and accounts of Great War aces, Jack Ballard tells the story of this little-known hero from the glory days of aerial warfare. Through this tale, an era and a daring flyer live again.

During his thirty-eight-year career as a military officer, Henry Clay Merriam received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Civil War, rose to prominence in the Western army, and exerted significant influence on the American West by establishing military posts, protecting rail lines, and maintaining an uneasy peace between settlers and Indians. Historian Jack Stokes Ballard's new study of Merriam's life and career sheds light on the experience of the western fort builders, whose impact on the US westward expansion, though less dramatic, was just as lasting as that of Indian fighters such as Custer and Sheridan. Further, Merriam's lengthy period in command of black troops offers a study in leadership and important understandings about the conditions under which African Americans served on the Western frontier. During the course of his service, Merriam crisscrossed the country, from Brownsville, Texas, to the Pacific Northwest and Vancouver Barracks, serving in eastern Washington, California, and Denver. Drawing extensively on the many letters and records associated with Merriam's long army career, Ballard presentshis service in a wide range of settings, many of which have become the stuff of Western history: from conflict with Mexican revolutionaries on the Rio Grande to the miners' riots in Coeur d'Alene. Ballard's careful research provides a vivid picture of the military's role in the westward expansion.

From 1937 to 1994, Lowry Air Force Base, located on the eastern edge of the city of Denver, served the nation and the surrounding community in many distinguished ways. The air base, primarily a technical training center, graduated more than 1.1 million enlisted members and officers in skills ranging from armament to photography, tremendously strengthening the country's war efforts in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Cold War. In addition, from the 1980s, Lowry Air Force Base remained one of Colorado's largest employers, with approximately 10,000 military and civilian men and women, providing an economic impact approaching $1 billion annually. Thus Lowry significantly contributed to maintaining the world's largest air force and to promoting the accelerated growth of the Denver metro area and Colorado.