Wedell's Corner

On December 26, 1933, Jimmy Wedell put a sick child into his racing plane at Houston and flew her to Baltimore for a brain operation. Baby Sue Trammel's trip was followed by radio across the country, and Wedell went through snow, fog and rain to land in eighteen inches of snow. Texas City historian Jesse Ponce wrote that he lit a cigarette, drank a cup of coffee and flew on to Washington. The child lived to be a wife and mother. Six months later Wedell died giving a flying lesson in Louisiana.

What the plaque says

Wedell's Corner Site, childhood home of Jimmy (1900-1934) and Walter (1901-1935) Wedell -- aviation pioneers. Jimmy designed, built, raced planes. With financier Harry Williams, operated early airline. At time of death in crash, held world's land plane speed record. Walter died in a later air disaster. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 8.6 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• The Strand — 8.7 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Moody Mansion — 9.0 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 9.1 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.

More markers nearby

• Shoal Point and Half Moon Shoal Lighthouse — steps away
• William Jefferson Jones — steps away
• U. S. Army Camp at Texas City — steps away
• First Aero Squadron — 0.4 mi