CANTON – Join Kenny Friedel at the St. Lawrence County Historical Association, 3 E. Main St., on Thursday, Aug. 24 at 12 p.m., as he talks about Ogdensburg’s fascinating, and sometimes turbulent, early commercial flight.

Great advances in air travel and flight technology occurred after WWI.

In 1920, the Ogdensburg Aerocraft Factory opened and Bombers, military training crafts, and scout planes were manufactured from 1920-25.

In 1923-24, C.E. Woolman, an amateur pilot and agriculture specialist, was hired to find a solution to the boll weevil problem plaguing cotton crops in the Mississippi Delta.

Woolman worked with the Huff-Daland Company in Ogdensburg to develop the first air crop-dusting company, changing agricultural pest control and altering natural landscapes.

C.E. Woolman later founded what would become Delta Air Lines.

Kenny Friedel has spent most of his life in St. Lawrence County. He retired from Potsdam Central School in 2014, and has been a real estate agent ever since.

Somewhere in the middle, he received a degree in agriculture from Canton ATC.

Friedel is an avid railroad enthusiast, historian and researcher specializing in WWI railways, engine mechanics and developments in transportation technology.

He lives in Potsdam with his wife Betsy, his Pomeranian, Payton, an undisclosed number of model trains and two backroad railroads.

The Brown Bag Lunch Series is dedicated to the memory of Patricia Carson Harrington, who founded it during her 24 years as an SLCHA Trustee.

There is a $5 suggested donation; members are free.