Ben T. Epps

Ben Epps stands with the Epps-Huff II, long thought to be Georgia’s first airplane.

Atlanta Journal article on the first flight of Ben Epps' "Epps Huff II" monoplane.

One such engineer was Ben Epps, of Athens, Georgia. Like the Wright brothers, Epps owned a bicycle repair shop, and he used the tools at his disposal to begin building airplanes. He tinkered with many homemade contraptions, and even used his mother's sewing machine to assemble the canvas wings of his first flying machines.

Epps was a student at Georgia Tech, but dropped out to open and operate his bicycle shop. In 1907, Epps and his business partner, Zump Huff, began work on an idea for a single wing push plane, using photographs of the Wright Flyer as inspiration. Popular Georgia history cites 1907 as the year that the Epps-Huff monoplane took flight; however, there is some dispute over that date. Some popular sources claim that Epps didn’t take his first flight until 1908¹ , while others claim that Epps’ first flight did not take place until 1909.

According to Dan Aldridge of Smithsonian Magazine, while the popular photograph of Ben Epps posing next to the Epps-Huff II monoplane (right) is often dated 1907, there are several buildings pictured that were still under construction in 1907, and the buildings would not have been completed until 1909² . An article in the August 30, 1909 edition of the Atlanta Journal (right) corroborates Aldridge's findings, describing the flight that took place in Athens' Lynwood Park area. In the years following his 1909 flight, Epps would continue to refine his plane, ultimately constructing eight aircraft. Epps died in 1937 as a result of injuries sustained during a failed test flight.