PIA – A History: Air Mail and Charles Lindbergh

(Originally posted August 31, 2015)

The previous installment covered early aviation and facilities in Peoria. Here, we will cover our city's first scheduled air mail service.

Robertson Aircraft Corporation was founded at St. Louis in 1921 by brothers William and Frank Robertson, who served as president and vice-president, respectively. Operations started at Forest Park, but soon after expanded to a second facility, St. Louis Flying Field, which the brothers helped establish on 170 acres of leased farmland in St. Louis County. In 1923, St. Louis Flying Field was renamed Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field after Major Albert Bond Lambert. Major Lambert purchased the property in 1925.

That same year, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill transferring airmail flying from the Post Office Department to private contractors. Robertson Aircraft Corporation won the Chicago-St. Louis air mail route (CAM-2) which included stops at Peoria and Springfield. It began on April 15, 1926. One of its pilots was none other than aviation pioneer Charles A. Lindbergh.

Robertson Aircraft used two DeHavilland DH-4′s to operate the route. The first flight departed St. Louis, stopped in Springfield and then at 6:55am, Lindbergh touched down at Kellar Field. Two planes flew together and the second of these landed just behind Lindbergh. Harlan Gurney, Phillip Love and Thomas Nelson were the other pilots assigned to this route.

Daily flights went smoothly until April 22 when Love smacked his undercarriage on a drainage ditch at the west side of Kellar Field. The propeller and belly of the DH-4 suffered damage so a spare plane was flown up from St. Louis by Nelson. This wasn't Peoria’s first aviation accident, but the first involving a scheduled flight.

Lindbergh himself experienced the perils of early flight. He had to abandon ship four times, twice during his mail flying career. On September 16, 1926, dense fog forced him to abandon the Peoria stop on his way to Checkerboard Field in Maywood near Chicago. But he had ran out of fuel, which forced him to bail out near Wedron. On November 3, mechanical issues forced him to bail out over Bloomington. No mail was destroyed in either crash, however.

One summer day in 1926 while flying the northbound leg from St. Louis, Lindbergh, by his own account, thought up the idea of becoming the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean. So in February 1927, after serving ten months as chief pilot for Robertson Aircraft’s CAM-2 mail route, he took a leave of absence to pursue his dream. He then moved to San Diego, California where a plane was designed and built for his planned Trans-Atlantic flight.

On May 20, 1927, Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on New York’s Long Island in his Ryan Aircraft Company “Ryan NYP” mono plane dubbed Spirit of St. Louis. Late in the evening the next day, after some 33 hours, he landed at Le Bourget Airport in Paris, France. Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis in Belgium and Great Britain before returning it to the United States.

Suddenly, the 25-year-old air mail pilot from St. Louis became a worldwide celebrity and a national hero. His fame promoted American commercial aviation more than any prior event. For the rest of the year, those applying for pilot’s licenses tripled, registered aircraft quadrupled and airline passenger traffic exploded.

Given Lindbergh’s continuing fame, there could be nothing more exciting in Peoria than to witness the celebrity pilot work his old mail route. He flew St. Louis-Springfield-Peoria-Chicago on February 20, 1928 and the return leg the next day. By this time, three aircraft and five regular pilots were needed to handle the heavy volume.

Also by this time, the air mail route shifted to new Chicago and Peoria airfields. In 1927, Chicago dedicated its Municipal Airport which would eventually be known as Chicago Midway Airport. Peoria’s Kellar Field was too small for modern aircraft, so in 1926 Alexander Varney opened a new facility known as Big Hollow Airport at what is now Shoppes at Grand Prairie.

(The next installment in this series will cover "Big Hollow Airport")

- David P. Jordan