Gilmore Bros., Aviation Pioneers 1931

This 1931 silent film, Gilmore Bros., Aviation Pioneers, shot in black-and-white 16mm from the Prelinger Archives, showcases Lyman and Charlie Gilmore in Grass Valley, California. It highlights their barn-housed aviation relics, including a cabin-model monoplane designed in 1908 but never flown, a steam-powered dream dwarfed by its coal-fed boiler. Amidst dusty wings and curious dogs, the brothers—local eccentrics and early flight tinkerers—pose proudly, their unverified 1902 flight claim lost to a 1935 fire. A pre-war snapshot of aviation’s quirky fringes, it blends ambition with obscurity.