Baptist minister and inventor Burrell Cannon (1848-1922) led Pittsburg investors in establishing the Ezekiel Airship Company to build a craft described in the biblical book of Ezekiel. The ship had large, fabric-covered wings powered by an engine that turned four sets of paddles. Built in a nearby machine shop, it was briefly airborne at this site late in 1902, a year before the Wright brothers first flew. Enroute to the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, the airship was destroyed by a storm. In 1913 a second model crashed, and Cannon gave up the project.