Sky Rider: Park Van Tassel and the Rise of Ballooning in the West

by Gary B. Fogel, Dick Brown (Foreword)

With a reputation as the hot-air balloon capital of the world and the home of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta®, the skies of the southwestern desert city of Albuquerque frequently showcase the magic and adventure of ballooning. This legacy links back to the 1880s and a man by the name of Park Van Tassel. Through his pioneering flight, Van Tassel not only opened the skies to future generations across New Mexico, but he also opened minds to the possibility of manned flight throughout the American West.

A charismatic, P. T. Barnum-like showman, Van Tassel rose from obscurity to introduce the new science of ballooning and parachuting throughout the West. Van Tassel toured extensively--from California to Utah, Colorado, and Louisiana and later embarking on an international journey that took him to Hawaii, Australia, Southeast Asia, India, Africa, and beyond. Sky Rider weaves together the many threads of Van Tassel's extraordinary life journey, situating him at last in his rightful place among the prominent aerial exhibitionists of his time.

272 pages, Paperback

Published September 15, 2021

Reviews

[Shirley]

Not exactly the most riveting history I've ever read - it kind of devolved into a wearying list of ascensions without a ton of historical background tied in. More thoughts after book club, but I'm predicting this won't be the most popular book we've done. It definitely isn't helped by me reading the first few chapters of The Age of Wonder at the same time, which manages to tie together biography and the history of ballooning together in a much more engaging way. This gives an exhaustive list of ascensions and travels made by one man, but I feel like it could have really benefited by a lot more contextualizing.