Levitt Ellsworth Custer

Levitt Ellsworth Custer was an Ohio dentist and competitive balloonist.

Biography

He was born on June 18, 1863, in Perrysville, Ohio, to Isaac Newton Custer, a dentist. He attended the public schools in New Philadelphia, Ohio, and Westerville, Ohio. He saved for college from 1878 to 1879 by playing the cornet with a river circus band that traveled from Cincinnati, Ohio, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Then attended Otterbein University and graduated in 1884. He then attended the Ohio [College of Dental Surgery] in 1885.
He married Effie Zimmerman, and had as his son, inventor Levitt Luzern Custer. Custer received a single patent himself, awarded in 1905, for a "Shield and Support for X-Ray Tubes".
In 1912 Custer took part piloting the Cole in the annual National Elimination balloon race, held by the Aero [Club of America]. Custer died on January 3, 1924.