Men are paving Zumbro Street (Second Street SW) with wooden blocks at the intersection with Main Street (First Avenue SW). Buildings visible in this scene are the Y.M.C.A., Universalist Church, Masonic Temple, Zumbro Hotel, Odd Fellows Building and the Scott and Everstine Store. The second person from the right in the foreground, facing the horses, is John Jensen.
Assistants are inflating individual balloons with hydrogen at Soldier's Field in Rochester, MN prior to Dr. Jean's Piccard's experimental balloon ascension. Dr. Jean Piccard was a University of Minnesota physicist and aeronautical engineer who believed it was possible to ascend into the stratosphere using many small cluster balloons rather than one large balloon. The experimental flight was sponsored by the Rochester Kiwanis Club and supported by local residents and students.
Cluster balloons have been inflated and are attached to the gondola, the Pleiades, just prior to take off from Soldier's Field in Rochester, MN. Dr. Jean Piccard was a University of Minnesota physicist and aeronautical engineer who believed it was possible to ascend into the stratosphere using many small cluster balloons rather than one large balloon. The experimental flight was sponsored by the Rochester Kiwanis Club and supported by local residents and students.