Description: Black & White print of the Marysville Merchants Baseball Team posing before the Friesley Falcon airliner, August 1921.
The team posed with the crew in front of the large twin engined aircraft, they recorded the fact that they were the first ball team in history to travel by aircraft to play a ball game. They are from left to right: Cliford Gottwalls, Warren Eich, Roy Francis (pilot), Capt. B. M. Spencer (designer, builder and pilot), Grafton Reed (mechanic), Clyde Manwell, Louis Wilcoxen, Tyrell Brook, Bryden Kelly, Lou Anthony, Unknown, Allen Eich, Charles Brown, and Harvey D. Eich (manager). The bat boy standing in front is Wonton Eich.
The man who funded the Friesley Falcon project was Harold Friesley (aka Friesleben). The Friesleben family had a farm on Highway 70 between Marysville and Oroville. The Airliner was partly constructed on the farm. Although this twelve passenger airliner was not a finacial success, the Friesley Falcon was aerodynamically and technologically a success. The Friesley Aircraft Corp. went bankrupt in 1922 and it is believed that the aircraft was sold to China.
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