Ottawa – City Council today approved a street name change in Gloucester-South Nepean Ward to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the first flight in Ottawa on September 11, 1911.

Bent Oak Street, in the expanding South Ottawa community of Findlay Creek east of Albion Road and north of Findlay Creek Drive, will be renamed Slattery’s Field Street between the two segments of Gracewood Crescent.

The neighbourhood is close to the Ottawa International Airport and the name change was championed by Ward Councillor Steve Desroches as a unique opportunity to recognize an important chapter in Ottawa’s aviation history.

The original Slattery’s Field was across the Rideau Canal from Lansdowne Park between what is now Main Street and Echo Drive near the intersection of Main Street and Riverdale Avenue. It was part of extensive pasture land belonging to wealthy Ottawa butcher William Slattery.

After John A. McCurdy made the first successful flight in the British Empire in the Silver Dart in Baddeck, Nova Scotia in 1909, the Central Canada Exhibition engaged his colleague, Captain Thomas Baldwin, to perform at the exhibition in September 1911 to showcase the new technology.

Capt. Baldwin’s protégé Lee Hammond flew the Red Devil biplane aircraft before 20,000 spectators in a five-minute flight on September 11, 1911 over the exhibition grounds, out to Dow’s Lake, back over the exhibition grounds with a few manoeuvres and back to land at Slattery’s Field, marking the beginning of aviation in Ottawa.

Photo credit: Emma Jackson, Ottawa this Week