Will Rogers entertained America through the Great Depression—can’t have been easy. He talked on the radio, he wrote newspaper columns, he appeared in movies; and, whatever the venue, he made people laugh. It’s hard to find humor in his brush with Alaska.
Almost as famous, Will’s friend Wiley Post didn’t entertain people, he flew airplanes.
In August, 1935, Post flew Rogers to Siberia… Well he didn’t, but he intended to.
They stopped on the way in Fairbanks, Alaska. Rogers “bummed around” Fairbanks and made friends. He clearly liked the place.
The men flew out of Fairbanks, landed about 15 miles from Barrow to ask directions. On takeoff, the engine died, the plane crashed. Both men died.
Will Rogers left his last newspaper column rolled in his typewriter. He wrote of his meeting with dog musher Leonhard Seppala who “is as identified with dogs as Mae West is with buxomness.”
I knew that they had died in a plane crash, but never really heard the story before.
A sad end. But then, I guess they all are. And Will Rogers would have at least tried to make it funny.