Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers

In the Valley, Rodgers dusted crops from a Curtiss Jenny with holes cut in the floor, and he reportedly flew low over tomato plants to stir the air and keep frost off them. He taught R. C. Hausinger, called Doc, to fly; Hausinger's widow later gave a half-scale model of Old Soggy to a museum in Keene. In 1950 Rodgers came back to McAllen to open a steakhouse, then ran a fishing camp and minnow business at Zapata. His autobiography, written with Hart Stilwell, appeared in 1954.

What the plaque says

Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers (March 7, 1889 - July 5, 1956) Daring stunt pilot "Slats" Rodgers developed a childhood interest in kites into a career in aviation that included barnstorming, bootlegging, arms smuggling, payroll flying and crop dusting. He built his first aircraft, known as "Old Soggy No. 1," in 1912 and later flew surplus World War I aircraft. Never one to abide by the rules, Slats was fined many times by the Civil Aeronautics Administration for illegal stunts and was refused his pilot's license until he settled his fines. His crop dusting business took him to the lower Rio Grande valley in the 1930s, where he made his home for many years. He died of natural causes in McAllen and is buried in Laurel Hills Cemetery in Mission. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• La Lomita Chapel — 5.8 mi
  A small sandstone chapel on the Rio Grande levee, built by Oblate missionaries in 1865 and rebuilt at this site in 1899, the landmark that gave the city of Mission its name.
• Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park — 8.8 mi
  A 587-acre stand of Rio Grande woodland near Mission, once part of a Spanish porción, given to the state by the Bentsen family in 1944 and now headquarters of the World Birding Center.
• Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge — 9.4 mi
  About 2,000 acres of river forest on the Rio Grande's north bank, the surviving part of Benigno Leal's 1834 land grant, kept as a refuge since 1943 where two bird migration routes meet.
• Museum of South Texas History — 9.7 mi
  Edinburg's regional museum, begun in 1967 in the 1910 Hidalgo County jail and now telling the Rio Grande's story from fossils and native peoples through steamboats to the 20th century.

More markers nearby

• Quinta Mazatlan_Home of Jason Matthews — 0.6 mi
• Bethel Baptist Church — 0.8 mi
• Campsite of the "Fighting 69th" — 1.5 mi
• Site of Casa de Palmas — 1.7 mi