Charles A. Lindbergh

Charles Augustus Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1902 and grew up in Minnesota, developing an early passion for aviation mechanics and barnstorming flight. In early 1927, as a twenty-five-year-old airmail pilot, Lindbergh secured financial backing from St. Louis businessmen to compete for the prestigious $25,000 Orteig Prize for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris.

Lindbergh chose Ryan Airlines in San Diego to construct his custom high-wing monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. For two intensive months in the spring of 1927, Lindbergh lived in San Diego and Coronado, working daily alongside Ryan engineers. Because the plane was weighed down with massive fuel tanks that blocked forward visibility, Lindbergh required long, unobstructed coastal runways for hazardous high-load flight tests.

Lindbergh conducted his critical speed trials, fuel-consumption calibrations, and heavy-weight takeoff tests across the expansive runways of Rockwell Field on North Island. On the morning of May 10, 1927, Lindbergh took off from North Island on the first leg of his historic transcontinental journey to St. Louis and New York, before embarking on his solo flight to Paris.

Lindbergh’s historic triumph galvanized global aviation and forever linked North Island and Coronado with the golden age of flight. The runway at North Island where the Spirit of St. Louis made its pioneering test flights is commemorated today on the National Register of Historic Places.