Joshua Thomas, renowned as the "Parson of the Islands," lived here from 1799 until about 1825, though his house is gone. The site later included a former U.S. Navy Spotting Station, now Tangier Town Hall, moved here from north of the airstrip. It had been used for the Navy's target range on the island's southwestern side, where target ships were placed for aircraft bombing practice. Here the ability of an airplane to sink a ship, even at night, was first proven, a turning point in modern military strategy. In 1920, the target ships Alabama and Indiana were positioned off Tangier's western side. After World War I revealed the possibilities of air power, the Army and Navy disputed its future use, while General William "Billy" Mitchell became its leading advocate, arguing that airplanes could destroy battleships and make the conventional Navy obsolete. He won government approval to test that theory at Tangier, with crews flying from Langley Field beginning in February 1921. Hazy weather hindered the pilots, and in late June 1921 two planes collided in midair, killing both pilots. Mitchell then persuaded engineer Lawrence Sperry to tackle poor-visibility flying, leading to Sperry's invention of the artificial horizon, still critical for instrument flight. On September 23, 1921, at 11:00 PM, Mitchell's men carried out the first night bombing attack on a ship from the air, setting the Indiana afire with 300-pound bombs. On September 26, 1921, one-ton bombs dropped from 2,500 feet sent the Alabama to the bottom of the Chesapeake Bay in less than 30 minutes. In 1924, the remains of Alabama and Indiana were salvaged and removed, while the San Marcos, previously wrecked in Navy gunnery exercises in 1911, remained in place.