It was a quiet September afternoon at Saratoga Springs’ Grand Union Hotel, with families and small groups gathering to relax and be seen by Saratoga’s high society. As the clock struck 4:30, a hush fell over the hotel’s piazza and every eye was drawn across Broadway to Congress Spring Park where a huge net shrouded sphere slowly rose above the trees.
When the giant ball had cleared the treetops, hanging below it was a small figure standing suspended in an open wire cage waving a handkerchief to the onlookers below. The crowd that day in 1884 witnessed a gas-filled balloon ascension by female aeronaut Carlotta Myers. [Read more…] about Aeronaut Carlotta Myers In The Clouds Over Saratoga