First Flight in Georgia
Site of Ben Epps' Garage
Georgia’s pioneer aviator, Benjamin Thomas Epps, was born in Oconee County in 1888. He opened Athens’ first automobile repair garage at this location on East Washington Street in 1907. That same year, nineteen-year-old Epps designed and built his first airplane here – a monoplane with an upright buggy seat, bicycle wheels, and a 35-foot wingspan powered by a fifteen-horsepower French Anzani engine. Its successful flight earned him recognition as the father of Georgia aviation. Epps tested his aircraft and operated a flying service at what is now Athens-Ben Epps Airport. He died of injuries suffered in a plane crash in 1937 at the age of forty-nine.
Marker is on E. Washington Street 0 miles east of North Lumpkin Street, on the left when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
