Paul Peck
American aviator (1889-1912)
Paul Peck (August 10, 1889 – September 11 or 12, 1912) was an early U.S. aviator. The first aviator from the U.S. state of West Virginia, he set a number of aviation firsts and records before dying in a plane crash.
Early life
Peck was born in Ansted, West Virginia, on August 10, 1889, the son of Leonidas McFarland "Lon" Peck (1857–1934) and Alice Peck née Masters (1869–1956), of Lewisburg, West Virginia. His father was a railroad agent. Peck spent most of his childhood in Hinton, West Virginia. As a child, he became interested in machinery and automobiles, and enjoyed tinkering with automotive engines.
In addition to Hinton, Peck lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, West Virginia. As a young man, he worked in Washington, D.C. as a chauffeur for Isaac T. Mann, a millionaire from West Virginia, and drove in automobile races.
Aviation career
Peck's interest in aviation arose from his interest in automobiles, as well as his association with his fiancee's cousin Rex Smith, an aviation pioneer and owner of the Rex Smith Aeroplane Company. He began flying lessons in 1911 and learned to fly in seven days.
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This entry incorporates text from “Paul Peck” 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.