A coroner’s inquest later determined that John Hunter was not responsible for the women’s deaths, but incidents like these must have been frequent reminders to all four of the brothers of the risk involved with flight. Hunter, although injured seriously, crawled from his seat and attempted to save the girls, but failed.” Two of the three remaining brothers were in the audience at the show and witnessed the accident. Before bystanders could rescue them the girls were burned to death. A gasoline tank above the heads of the girls burst and sprinkled them with the inflammable liquid. The Murphysboro Daily Independent reported, “They took seats in the cockpit and when the plane had attained a height of about 50 feet it suddenly banked and swerved, crashed into the top of a tree and dived to earth. After a flying exhibition in Cape Girardeau, two young women from Cobden, Grace Lamar and Pearl Baysinger, paid Hunter to take them for a ride in his aircraft. John, Mabel, and Irene Hunter made a fortunate escape from a burning plane north of Sparta in May 1928.īut in the summer of 1925, John Hunter was involved in an even more horrifying tragedy. Kenneth Hunter narrowly avoided serious injury during a parachute stunt gone wrong at a county fair in Sparta in 1925. In 1924, one of the stunt flyers who worked with the brothers, Charles Exiter, was killed in a plane crash his co-pilot, Albert Hunter, was only slightly injured. But flying was an incredibly risky endeavor, and the brothers faced personal injury as well as harm to those around them. They became good friends with the man who would become the most famous aviator of his age: Charles Lindbergh. They dubbed their act the “Hunter Flying Circus.” (They were also known in news reports from the day as the “Birds from Egypt.”) One contemporary newspaper article describes the show as a “daring exhibition of sky vaudeville” which includes “about every known thing on the aerial calendar.” Robert Hayes notes that their performances included “wing-walking, parachute leaps, changing from one plane to another in mid-air, loop the loops, tailspins and other sensational stunts.” One of their first major shows in Randolph County took place in Sparta that September.Īll four of the Hunter Brothers began aviation careers that included airshow performances, passenger service, and even airmail delivery. By the summer of 1924, they had acquired two more planes, and they were performing air stunts with Gurney at county fairs all over Illinois and Indiana. (One of their sisters, Irene, also became a pilot.) Soon, they had graduated from motorcycle stunts to trick flying. A local pilot, Bud Gurney, taught all four brothers how to fly. John managed to survive the initial landing, and the brothers patched up the plane. He managed, after only 90 minutes of instruction, to pilot the plane back across the river, but his landing in a Tilden pasture was less than graceful. Louis and learn to fly the new plane, while the other three headed back to Sparta. One brother, John, was assigned to stay behind in St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, “Albert routed them past the airfield that is now Lambert and … fell in love, hard, with an open-cockpit biplane.” On a whim, they decided to sell their motorcycles and buy the airplane. In a later survey of the brothers’ careers, the St. In 1923, though, their route took them past St. Each spring, they would ride their motorbikes to St. The brothers first gained notoriety in Sparta for their motorcycle stunt riding. To help support the family, which also included sisters Mabel and Irene, the brothers worked in automotive garages and local coal mines. The eldest was only 15 when their father died in an accident on the Big Muddy River. The four brothers – Albert, John, Kenneth, and Walter – were the sons of Alexander and Ida Blair Hunter. The Hunter Brothers: Albert, John, Kenneth, and Walterĭaredevils, barnstormers, and record-breakers, the Hunter Brothers of Sparta were pioneers in the field of aviation, dazzling spectators around the country with feats of sport and endurance in the sky.
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