Cleveland History Blog

More on Cleveland's Balloon Boy

The Plain Dealer recently ran a story about Cleveland's "Balloon Boy," a 6-year-old kid whose father floated him high over the city as a publicity stunt during the Depression. Think flagpole sitters and other attention-getters during those hard times. In these days, when Michael Jackson was lambasted for dangling a child over his balcony, you can imagine the response today if some father sent his 1st grader soaring up over Municipal Stadium in a home-made balloon, indeed the recent story of Falcon Heene is enough indication of how feelings have changed. Read the PD story for the story of Cleveland's Balloon Boy, but here are a couple of photos from the Cleveland Press Collection, at CSU's Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections.


BTW, in the PD story the child is identified as Billy Crawford, who they quote in the story as an 82-year-old today, whereas the Press calls him Don Crawford, which was the father's name.

Labels: Balloon Boy, Billy Crawford, Cleveland history, Cleveland Ohio, Depression era, stunts

posted by Bill Barrow @ 1:07:00 PM