On October 14, 1944, a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on a training mission became lost in dense fog, circled Mabry Mill twice, and crashed in a nearby field. The bomber had been purchased eighteen months earlier through the United States government's Buy a Bomber campaign to support World War II, after school students from Grand Rapids, Michigan sold more than $300,000 in United States War Bonds and War Stamps and earned the right to name the plane The Spirit of South High. Although the plane was destroyed, all crew members survived.