Logan Archbold Vilas
American aviation
Logan Archbold "Jack" Vilas (May 25, 1891 – May 15, 1976) was an aviation pioneer and a member of the Early Birds of Aviation. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Aviation Hall of Fame in 2000.
Biography
He was born in New York City on May 25, 1891, to Royal Cooper Vilas and Carrie Logan Ward. They moved to Evanston, IL when Jack was about 5 years old.
In the spring of 1913, Vilas visited Glenn Curtiss in Hammondsport, New York, and made a down payment on his Hydro-Aeroplane and enrolled in the Curtiss Flying School. He graduated in four weeks becoming a certificated pilot, holding U.S. Hydro-License No. 6 from the Aero Club of America. He became the first person to fly across Lake Michigan when he completed a 64 mile over-the-water flight from Silver Beach Amusement Park in St. Joseph, Michigan, to Chicago on July 1, 1913. In 1914, he flew to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the Wisconsin Aero Club and, in the summer of 1915, he was hired by the Wisconsin Conservation Commission to fly fire patrol over the Northwoods in his Curtiss Model F flying boat.
“Logan Archbold Vilas” enters the record as american aviation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Logan, Archbold and Vilas can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Logan Archbold Vilas” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Logan, Archbold and Vilas provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q6666934. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1891, 1976, 2000 and 1913.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Logan Archbold Vilas”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Logan Archbold Vilas primary sources, Logan Archbold Vilas archive and Logan research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Logan Archbold Vilas”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Logan Archbold Vilas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.