A solo trans-Atlantic flight to Paris is the signature event in the iconic life of Charles Lindbergh, but it was, perhaps, not the most challenging or arduous. A visit to his boyhood home on the bank of the Mississippi River in Little Falls, Minnesota, revealed that in 1916, a 14-year-old Lindbergh spent 40 days on the “road” from Minnesota to California in a Saxon Light Six with his mother, his uncle, and Wahgoosh, his fox terrier. The car, now restored, still resides in its garage at the Minnesota Historical Society site.
My visit came on the last leg of a 16-day, 5,400-mile motorcycle trip to Seattle and back, mostly on the US highway system, which was created in 1926, a year before Lindbergh’s flight to Paris. President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National System of Interstate and Defense Highway System into being in 1956, in part because he was one of 37 officers and 285 enlisted men who manned 81 Army vehicles in the First Transcontinental Motor Train that took three months to cover the distance between Washington, DC, and San Francisco in 1919.
In his Autobiography of Values, Lindbergh says little about the adventure. “There were rainy days in Missouri when mud collected on the Saxon’s wheels until we could not move. Frozen ruts in New Mexico slowed us down to a speed of less than ten miles an hour, as did Arizona sand.”
This was the era when paths that connected towns were marked with different color blazes painted on telegraph poles and fence posts. The prime transcontinental route was the Lincoln Highway, which stretched from New York City to San Francisco and was dedicated in 1913. I wonder, would parents today allow their 14-year-old to make Lindbergh’s trip?
Even more remarkable is that Lindbergh, born the year before the Wrights flew with power, learned to drive in 1912, several months before his 12th birthday, in his father’s Model T, named Maria (ma-RYE-a). That was the same year he saw his first airplane, said the guide. He was in the attic playing with his toys when he heard an unfamiliar engine noise. Fascinated about all things mechanical, he climbed out the window onto the roof for a better look, she said, pointing to the window.
In 1912, the United States had 2.2 million miles of “roads,” but only 8.66 percent of that distance was “improved” with gravel, stone, brick, shells, clay, or oiled earth. The US was still digging the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914. In 1916, William Boeing flew his first design and then formed Pacific Aero, today better known as the Boeing Airplane Co. And before the Lindbergh hit the road for San Francisco, he logged 3,000 miles in the Saxon, driving his father around Minnesota for his campaign for reelection to Congress.
Spending the winter in California, where he attended the 11th grade at Redondo Beach High School, he and his mother found time for trips in the Saxon to San Diego and San Francisco. In the spring of the following year, he and his mother, Evangeline, whose hand he shook every night before bed, spent 40 days on the road back to Minnesota. With this boyhood contest, I better understand why planning a 33-hour flight to Paris didn’t seem to faze Lindbergh at all. At least he could stretch his legs in the car. In the lower level of the adjoining museum is an accurate, full-scale simulator of the Spirit of St. Louis, complete with a Wright J-5C. Microsoft Flight Simulator provides the left side and panel periscope views. My flight didn’t go well, and I don’t know how Lindbergh survived 33 hours in the tiny cockpit. He was almost 6 feet tall in 1916.
Like many aviators, I’ve read Lindbergh’s autobiography and a number of biographies, including A. Scott Berg’s excellent Lindbergh. But this single visit, which I recommend highly to anyone with even a passing interest in aviation and worth many times the $8 adult admission, gave me a deeper, more personal understanding and appreciation for the man, especially when I learned about another of his cars, a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle.
He bought the car in Paris and drove it all over Europe and the Middle East, and then shipped it home to Connecticut, where it served for years as the family car. Lindbergh drove the Beetle all over the United States and spent more than a hundred nights sleeping in it, using his shoes for a pillow. Before his death in 1974, he’d driven to Little Falls to help stage his boyhood home, where more than 90 percent of the artifacts are original, and he spoke at the museum’s dedication in 1973.
Called away on some other business, he left the VW in the home’s garage. The contents of the trunk are also on display, and they say a lot about the Lindbergh’s true nature. Among the items were a tool kit and owner’s manual, a trenching shovel and spoon, a can opener, white canteen, and air mattress, a can of Campbell’s soup, and two tins of Brunswick sardines. It wasn’t much different than what he took to Paris, two canteens and four sandwiches. One must admire not only the achievement, but also the stolid consistency of his character. — Scott Spangler, Editor