Aviation icon memorialized in Hammondsport

ROCHESTER - In the centenary year of one of aviation's greatest triumphs, a patch of wilderness next to Keuka Lake is finally being turned into a park honoring the Wright brothers' archrival, Glenn H. Curtiss.

Outside his tiny hometown of Hammondsport in western New York, Curtiss flew his bamboo-and-fabric June Bug over a vineyard for 1 minute, 42.5 seconds on July 4, 1908. It was the nation's first officially observed flight exceeding 1 kilometer (0.6 mile).

A lengthy feud over whether to preserve or develop the largely unobstructed lakefront where Curtiss later carried out test flights for the world's first seaplane came to an end last weekend when the town bought 8 acres of overgrown lakefront land from a real estate developer for $900,000.