Conner Prairie Balloon ride will carry up to 20 people 350 feet high
Conner Prairie will begin its outdoor season April 2 not as a pioneer-era museum but as an “interactive history park.”
Conner Prairie will begin its outdoor season April 2 not as a pioneer-era museum but as an “interactive history park.”
The scenario for area art institutions could darken considerably in 2010, 2011 and 2012, as cultural institutions fully account for devastating investment losses in their endowments â?? a key source of income.
Conner Prairie wants to pay homage to early aviator John Wise with a balloon ride that recalls his August
1859 trip from Lafayette at the helm of a gas-filled balloon bound for New York City with the nation’s first
air-mail delivery. An ill wind blew him Wisecourse, ending his flight in Crawfordsville, but he still earned
a place in history–and a U.S. Postal Service-issued stamp honoring his pioneering effort.
In the 2-1/2 years following a 2003 overhaul of Conner Prairie management orchestrated by Earlham College, the Hamilton County attraction was mired in uncertainty over its future and an increasingly bleak financial outlook. Now the skies are brightening.