The True Wizard Behind Oz: How a Brave Balloonist Inspired L. Frank Baum’s Timeless Tale

At the turn of the century, when children’s literature was full of moral lessons and cautionary violence, L. Frank Baum he set out to write a great story for American children, free from the oppressive morality of the times.

Inspiration was all around him – biographers and critics alike found everyone and everything, from his mother-in-law to Castle Park, Michigan, reborn in “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The Wizard of OzDorothy was named after the real child, Baum’s and his wife Maud Gage’s deceased infant niece. However, it took a century before the inspiration for the Wizard himself was identified – Washington Harrison Donaldson, a balloonist and colleague of the famous circus master. PT Barnum.

Born in Philadelphia in 1840, Donaldson was a gymnast, ventriloquist, tightrope walker and, like the Wonderful Wizard himself, a magician. His most famous early feat was to cross the Genesee River in New York on a 500-meter long taut rope, two hundred feet above the water, and then cross it again, pushing a man in a wheelbarrow in front of him.

Having no prior knowledge of hot air balloon flying, Donaldson trespassed on the property of the hot air balloon and made his debut as an aeronaut in 1871. He traveled eighteen miles, but only after all loose objects had been ejected from the balloon to enable it to be launched. The following year, his balloon burst a mile above the ground in Virginia, and another attempt to fly resulted in him crashing among chestnut trees and nearly killing him.

Jack Haley as the Tin Man, Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, Judy Garland as Dorothy, Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow and Frank Morgan as the Porter to the Emerald City in “The Wizard of Oz”, 1939. (Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)He built a new balloon called Magenta, and after After several successful flights, Donaldson joined John Wise (the “father of the American balloon”) in his quest to finance and build a huge balloon that could cross the Atlantic Ocean, having recently discovered a jet stream that had not yet been named.

Such a balloon was created, but Wise withdrew from the project at the last minute, leaving the inexperienced Donaldson to pilot the huge balloon alone. He took two companions with him, registered as Ford and Lunt, and rose from the Capitoline baseball field in Brooklyn, but the balloon never reached the ocean. Donaldson couldn’t control it; he jumped out of the basket with Ford, but Lunt was too late and he died from his injuries six months after the crash.

In the summer of 1874, P. T. Barnum offered Donaldson meetings from his hippodrome and from what was then Gilmore’s Garden (today Madison Square Garden), during which he escorted many passengers and reporters, all of which were successful. His fame and notoriety grew, and in October of that year a brave couple from Cincinnati wanted to get married on his balloon, and the ceremony took place from a basket in the air. During this time he also visited his new giant balloon Will o’ The Wisp, around the Finger Lakes area of ​​upstate New York until it was damaged beyond repair in the Half Way Station fire.

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July 15, 1875 was the 138th and last known voyage of Washington Harrison Donaldson aboard the PT Barnum balloon. The day before, it had risen with many passengers to a lake in Chicago, but a calm day meant the balloon traveled only three miles before it was towed away. It was reported that one of the hippodrome’s managers berated Donaldson, saying, “What’s the use of it? Why didn’t you go anywhere?”

“Wait until tomorrow,” Donaldson allegedly replied, “and I’ll go far enough for you.”

His incredible reaction foreshadowed a tragic journey. After a failed mission the day before, the balloon was showing a lack of buoyancy, so Donaldson insisted on taking only one passenger this time. Newton S. Grimwood, reporter for the Chicago Evening Journal., they drew a “prize” and set off at 5 p.m. They were last seen by the crew of the Little Guide two hours later as they floated through the water, but they fired again before the ship could reach them – as if, as they reported at the time, “their load had been relieved.”

That night a great and terrible storm broke out in the region, and no more was heard of the man until the body of Newton Grimwood, still wearing his life jacket with notes for the article in his pocket, was washed up on the shores of Lake Michigan in August. No trace of Donaldson or PT Barnum was ever found.

Interestingly, Donaldson’s former colleague John Wise suffered a similar fate just four years later when his Pathfinder balloon went down over Lake Michigan. The body of his passenger, George Burr, was found, but not his own body (no sign of the Pathfinder).

Faced with two potential hot air balloon heroes on whom to base his great wizard, L. Frank Baum chose the magician over the engineer. Adventurous and brave, likable and full of good humor, Washington Donaldson won hearts with his failures and successes. Writing a children’s book free from moral judgment means accepting that perhaps fortune really does favor the brave, the ill-equipped, and those who are emboldened by self-confidence, if nothing else. Heroes can come from unexpected places with extraordinary gifts.

What a wonderful wizard he could have been.