It's a bird. It's a plane. It's cigars with wings.
Barnstormer Karl Ort and sales manager Ray Paris used the novelty of aviation to sell their company’s cigars.
In the early days of flying, the York-based pair, tooling around in their DeHavilland plane, tossed cigars attached to parachutes to would-be customers on the ground.
This story with an enlarged photograph of Ort and Paris with their Manchester Cigar Co. DH6 is part of a transportation exhibit at the York County Heritage Trust’s Agricultural and Industrial Museum. For additional details on the early years of York County aviation, see http://www.yorktownsquare.com/2006/11/post_1.php.
The exhibit tells the rest of the story... .
To gain attention, the pair sometimes dropped firecracker bombs, designed to explode in mid-air, from their Havana Cadet.
In one drop over Binghamton, N.Y., the firecrackers did not explode until they reached the ground.
Police noticed, and exacted a deal when the York County men landed their craft.
The aviators were ordered to distribute 100 cigars to the police force as payment.
