On Sept. 3, 1927, Dale Bain sat on a curb at about 500 West and North Temple, waiting for the caravan from the airport. "I can remember how excited I was," said the Salt Lake-area resident.
The date was a little more than three months after Charles A. Lindbergh had become the first pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic Ocean. The 4-year-old Bain was waiting for a look at the aviation hero when he visited Utah during a nationwide tour arranged by the Guggenheim Foundation.
On the morning of May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off in his specially designed monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis, from Roosevelt Field, Long Island. Packing two sandwiches and two canteens of water, Lindbergh flew with no radio to reduce weight. Thirty-three hours after he left, he touched down at Le Bourget airfield near Paris. He was greeted by a crowd of 100,000 cheering Parisians.
With this feat, he did more than win a $25,000 prize for the first solo crossing. It popularized aviation as no other event had since the Wright Brothers took to the air. "Lucky Lindy's" ticker-tape parade in New York City attracted an estimated 4 million spectators.
During the Guggenheim tour that followed, he flew his famous aircraft across the country twice, visiting 48 states and 92 cities.
When it was Salt Lake City's turn, Lindbergh brought the Spirit of St. Louis to a landing at Woodward Field west of the city, after flying 7½ hours from Cheyenne, Wyo. On that leg he had reached 19,800 feet altitude, according to an Internet site dedicated to all things Lindbergh, www.charleslindbergh.com, source of many of the facts in this article.
"On his arrival at Woodward field, 35,000 people cheered," says a typewritten news report of the event retained in the Deseret News archives. "When he stepped from the Spirit of St. Louis, he was greeted by Gov. George H. Dern, Mayor C. Clarence Neslen, Senators Reed Smoot and William H. King, Congressmen E.O. Leatherwood and Don. B. Colton, President Heber J. Grant (of The Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints,) a number of army officers located here, and a delegation from the Chamber of Commerce.
"He was taken from the field to the city by automobile through continuous lanes of people. He went through the business district and directly to Liberty Park, where he addressed a large gathering."
Bain, who grew up to be a World War II veteran and a longtime Deseret News employee before his retirement, found his view blocked by the crowds who strained to glimpse Lindbergh as he traveled from the air field to Liberty Park. "People were so anxious to see the new hero," he recalled.
"My grandfather picked me up in his arms so I could get a good look at the car as it came into town." He could see Lindbergh inside.
"He was lanky," Bain said, "a very slender man, and he was kind of a quiet person anyway. He wasn't waving his arms. He acknowledged the crowd."
The boy obtained a souvenir badge that day. "It was a just a picture of Lindy, just a tin badge you put on your shirt," said the Salt Lake resident. He still has the badge.
Photos of Lindbergh's visit to Utah and other events during his life are printed here, while more are presented on line. Kept in the Deseret News archives, they are reminders of a man who went from hero to a tragic figure and then an object of scorn and eventually drew attention as an environmental activist. The photographs were culled from the newspaper's files by Ronald Fox, North Salt Lake, a collector of political and Utah history items.
In 1932 Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., 23-month-old son of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was kidnapped from their home in New Jersey. Although a $50,000 ransom was paid, the child was notfound where the kidnapper claimed he was; instead, the toddler's body was later discovered where it had been left, a few miles from the Lindberghs' home. A German immigrant, Bruno Richard Hauptmann, was convicted and executed for the murder.
Lindbergh was responsible for finding research grants for Robert H. Goddard, the father of American rocketry, and the aviator also helped devise an early version of an artificial heart.
Many Americans were outraged when, on a 1938 visit to Europe, Lindbergh accepted the "Service Cross of the German Eagle" from Hermann Goering, commander of the Nazi air force. Lindberg also wrote racist articles, claiming civilization depended "on a Western wall of race and arms which can hold back…the infiltration of inferior blood," according to a report by the Public Broadcasting Service.
Lindbergh campaigned for the "America First Committee," advocating against American involvement in the war, arguing that Germany was too strong to defeat. PBS related that in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, he said, "The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt Administration."
He attacked Jews, saying, "Their greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government."
The once-wildly popular Lindbergh was denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi.
Nevertheless, during World War II, he flew more than 50 combat missions in the Pacific. PBS added that on one of these flights "he brought down an enemy fighter."
Following the war, he led a lower-profile life. He won the Pulitzer Prize for a book about his trans-Atlantic flight, and in the 1960s he spoke in favor of environmental protection. Lindbergh died in 1974.
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