Suggested edit: Please add this to the bio section, thanks.
Everett “Shorty” Akins, of Dubuque, was a “human fly”, who, using no tool scaled the outside of tall buildings and church steeples. The stocky 5’ tall steeplejack and coach first gained attention one weekday evening in July 1920 when he climbed the exterior of the Dubuque County Courthouse and swung from a trapeze mounted on the then bronze dome. He soon had a contract with an “air circus” which toured the country and featured Akins walking on airplane wings, performing trapeze tricks in flight and jumping in midair from one plane to another. In the 1940s, Akins moved to the Detroit area to work for a steel company, and he died in 1965.
Dubuque the Birthplace of Iowa, Vol. III, A Telegraph Herald Publication.
Contributor: Cheryl Locher Moonen (47601076) • [email protected]
Everett “Shorty” Akins, of Dubuque, was a “human fly”, who, using no tool scaled the outside of tall buildings and church steeples. The stocky 5’ tall steeplejack and coach first gained attention one weekday evening in July 1920 when he climbed the exterior of the Dubuque County Courthouse and swung from a trapeze mounted on the then bronze dome. He soon had a contract with an “air circus” which toured the country and featured Akins walking on airplane wings, performing trapeze tricks in flight and jumping in midair from one plane to another. In the 1940s, Akins moved to the Detroit area to work for a steel company, and he died in 1965.
Dubuque the Birthplace of Iowa, Vol. III, A Telegraph Herald Publication.
Contributor: Cheryl Locher Moonen (47601076) • [email protected]
Suggested edit: Please add this to the bio section, thanks.
Everett “Shorty” Akins, of Dubuque, was a “human fly”, who, using no tool scaled the outside of tall buildings and church steeples. The stocky 5’ tall steeplejack and coach first gained attention one weekday evening in July 1920 when he climbed the exterior of the Dubuque County Courthouse and swung from a trapeze mounted on the then bronze dome. He soon had a contract with an “air circus” which toured the country and featured Akins walking on airplane wings, performing trapeze tricks in flight and jumping in midair from one plane to another. In the 1940s, Akins moved to the Detroit area to work for a steel company, and he died in 1965.
Dubuque the Birthplace of Iowa, Vol. III, A Telegraph Herald Publication.
Contributor: Cheryl Locher Moonen (47601076) • [email protected]
Everett “Shorty” Akins, of Dubuque, was a “human fly”, who, using no tool scaled the outside of tall buildings and church steeples. The stocky 5’ tall steeplejack and coach first gained attention one weekday evening in July 1920 when he climbed the exterior of the Dubuque County Courthouse and swung from a trapeze mounted on the then bronze dome. He soon had a contract with an “air circus” which toured the country and featured Akins walking on airplane wings, performing trapeze tricks in flight and jumping in midair from one plane to another. In the 1940s, Akins moved to the Detroit area to work for a steel company, and he died in 1965.
Dubuque the Birthplace of Iowa, Vol. III, A Telegraph Herald Publication.
Contributor: Cheryl Locher Moonen (47601076) • [email protected]
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