Astronomy Night & World's Smallest Airport

Tomorrow, February 24th, Landmark Park will be holding our annual Astronomy Night!  Come out to the Park from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. to view stars, constellations, and planets through telescopes and binoculars.  Admission is $3 for members, $4 for scouts and their leaders in uniform, $5 for nonmembers and free for children 5 and under.  This event meets several requirements for an Astronomy Badge!

On Sunday, February 26, visitors to Landmark Park will have the opportunity to view a newly released documentary titled “World's Smallest Airport: The True Story of the Thrasher Brothers Aerial Circus, 1945-1950”. The film begins at 2 p.m. in the Stokes Activity Barn. The film is free with paid admission to the park.

The film features the flying stunts of Grady Thrasher, Jr. and his brothers “Bud” and Tunis who took their aerial circus on the road and performed from New York to Texas to Miami. Over the five year period of 1945-1950, the Thrasher Brothers Aerial Circus performed their daredevil stunts in 384 different shows, closing their last show in 1950 in Charleston, SC.

“The World's Smallest Airport” is the brainchild of son Grady Thrasher III and the film utlizes vintage footage, newspaper clippings and other memorabilia discovered among family possessions. Viewers will be amazed to watch the Thrasher brothers demonstrate wing walking, “delayed” parachute jumping, steering a flying plane while sitting outside the cockpit on the wing, and a variety of other stunts. The most celebrated stunt was Grady landing a Piper Club onto the “Worlds Smallest Airport”--a wooden and steel platform mounted on the top of a 1946 Ford car--as Tunis drove it down the runway.

In 1957, Grady Thrasher, Jr. moved to Dothan and served as head of Test & Development Company, a subsidiary of Southern Airways.  The company had a contract with the army at Ft. Rucker to test and maintain new helicopters being purchased by the army.  His son Grady Thrasher, III graduated from Dothan High School and daughter Miki  attended Girard Elementary and Girard Jr. High.  In 1962, Thrasher moved his family to Huntsville where he worked for the Army Missile Command at Redstone Arsenal.

The Thrasher brothers feats were not forgotten, however. In 1976, when the new Smithsonian Air and Space Museum opened in Washington, D.C., the Thrasher Brothers Aerial Circus story and photographs were displayed in the museum's Exhibition Flying Hall. They remained on display there until 1981. All three of the original Thrasher brothers are now deceased. Grady Thrasher, Jr. died in 1994 at the age of 76.

Both of Thrasher's children, Grady Thrasher, III and Miki Thrasher McFatter, along with filmmaker Matt DeGenarraro, will attend the one-hour film presentation at Landmark Park and will answer questions afterward.

Below is a link to the trailer of the documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R_76LHkU6I

Landmark Park is located on U.S. Hwy 431, three miles north of Dothan's Ross Clark Circle. Admission to the 135 acre park is $4 for adults and $3 for children, with free admission to park members. For more information, call the park office at 334-794-3452 or visit www.landmarkpark.com