Charles
Lindbergh
& the Spirit of St. Louis
Power point created by Robert Martinez
Primary Content Source: A History of US, War, Peace, and All That Jazz; by Joy Hakim
In 1919, a wealthy hotel man,
Raymond Orteig, offered a prize of
$25,000 to anyone who could fly from
New York to Paris. Several pilots
tried for the prize. No one collected.
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In 1927, competition got fierce.
Besides the money, everyone knew
there would be much glory for the
pilot who first crossed the Atlantic
Ocean.
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In April, Richard E. Byrd took off,
crashed, and broke his wrist.
That same April, two pilots set out
from Virginia, crashed, and were
killed. In early May, two French aces
left Paris, headed out over the
Atlantic, and were never heard of
again.
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In mid-May, three planes were being
made ready. Newspapers were full of
their stories. The competition had
captured the imagination of people
on both sides of the Atlantic.
Most of the newspaper attention
focused on Byrd, who was famous
and eager to try again. His plane had
three engines and a well-trained
crew.
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The second plane, with two engines,
was to be flown by two experienced
pilots. The third plane, a small singleengine craft, could hold only one
person. It was called the Spirit of St.
Louis.
The Spirit of St. Louis got its name,
from a group of St. Louis
businessmen who helped pay for the
plane.
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The pilot, Charles Lindbergh, was
little known. He’d been a
barnstormer, a pilot who went
around doing trick flying, circles and
loops and daredevil things.
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Lindbergh would take people on
plane rides for $5 a spin.
Charles Lindbergh picture on left.
That was the kind of thing most
pilots did in those days. People didn’t
use airplanes for transportation.
Trains were used to get places.

Airplanes? No one was quite sure
where the future of aviation lay. But
if planes could fly across the ocean
safely, they might have an important
future.
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Lindbergh was a good pilot. He was
the first man to fly the U.S. mail from
St. Louis to Chicago.

And the first to survive four forced
parachute jumps (forced because his
planes developed problems and
crashed.)

Something about him attracted
people. Partly it was his looks. He
was tall, six-foot-two, thin, with light,
curly hair and a boyish grin. He
looked younger than his 25 years.
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He was quiet, and was always more
at ease with machines, or nature,
than with people. He’d grown up in
Minnesota, where his father was a
congressman.
Lindbergh never did well in school,
maybe because he went to a
different school almost every year.
But he was smart enough to do a lot
of reading.
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It was 8 a.m. on May 20 when he
took off. The weather wasn’t good,
but he was anxious to beat the
others, and he was used to flying the
mail in all kinds of weather.

His little plane carried so much
gasoline that some people thought it
would never get into the air. But
Lindbergh had planned carefully.
There wasn’t an extra ounce on the
plane.

He sat in a light wicker chair and
carried little besides the fuel, a
quart of water, a paper sack full of
sandwiches, and a rubber raft.
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There was no parachute, it would be
of no use over the ocean, and there
was no radio. He would be on his
own once he left the East Coast.
Lindbergh headed out to sea, and
people around the world learned of it
on their radios.
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That evening, during a boxing match
at Yankee Stadium, the spectators
rose and said a prayer for Charles
Lindbergh, somewhere over the
Atlantic Ocean.
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Lindbergh had to stay awake or
crash. After eight or ten hours of
sitting in one place he began to doze.
The night before the flight he had
been so excited, that he had not
slept at all.
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Luckily the plane was frail. It banged
about in the wind, and each time he
started to nod it went spiraling down
toward the water. That woke him.
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Then miraculously, the fatigue ended,
he looked down, and there was
Ireland. Lindbergh was exactly
where the charts said he should be.
Cockpit of the
Spirit of St. Louis.
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Lindbergh didn’t know that his plane
was spotted over Ireland and the
news radioed to America and France.
People cheered and wept with relief.
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He was seen over London, and then
over the English Channel.
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Thirty-three and a half hours after he
left the United States, he circled the
Eiffel Tower in Paris.
It had taken less time than he
expected, so he was worried that no
one would be at the airport to meet
him. Then he looked down and saw a
mob of people. They were waving
and screaming.
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The young flyer, who had brought
nothing with him but the paper bag
with sandwiches, was carried about
on shoulders and hugged and kissed
and cheered.
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Charles Lindbergh was soon meeting
kings and princes and more crowds
of admirers.
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He wanted to stay in Europe and see
the sights, but President Calvin
Coolidge sent a naval cruiser to
Europe just to carry him and the
Spirit of St. Louis back to America.
He was a world hero.
Charles Lindbergh &
President Calvin Coolidge.
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All over America there were parades
and dinners and celebrations for the
man they called “Lone Eagle.”
People went wild with pride and
excitement.
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By the way, Lindbergh collected the
prize check.