When Charles Lindbergh landed his monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, at Amboy Airport in Camillus on July 28, 1927, he was arguably the most famous person in the western world.
“The Lone Eagle,” was just two months removed from his barrier-shattering solo trans-Atlantic flight, an almost unbelievable achievement that catapulted Lindbergh into truly rarified air.
Thirty-three hours and thirty minutes. That was the total flight time for Col. Lindbergh from Roosevelt Field on Long Island to Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, a distance of 3,500 miles. The object of adulation on a scale not seen since the end of the Great War, Lindbergh was celebrated everywhere he went, from New York to Paris and London.
Now, Lindy’s visit to Syracuse, itself part of a much larger goodwill tour sponsored by the Daniel Guggenheim Foundation for the Promotion of Aeronautics, was not the famous flyer’s first interaction with the Salt City.
As fate would have it, the Franklin Automobile Company, known and respected the world over for their visionary engineering and their air-cooled motors (a technology perfected by Syracuse native and engineer, John Wilkinson), had a connection to Lindbergh that the company would leverage for the duration of its existence.
William Leininger, an executive at the United States Advertising Co. and the man in charge of the Franklin account, actually supervised Lindbergh in his Air National Guard squadron back in the mid-1920s.
Leininger, recognizing the immense potential of having Lindbergh attached to the brand, convinced H.H. Franklin to gift Lindbergh a car. In turn, Leininger convinced “Slim,” as he referred to Lindbergh, to accept a Franklin and, more importantly, to take a photograph with one.
Lindy, leery of receiving gifts, was already a fan of the company’s engineering, and, with the prodding of his old friend, he agreed. Lindbergh cabled H.H. Franklin to thank him for the car on May 31, 1927. For the next seven years, Franklin sold an “Airman” Sedan, advertising the “airplane type” motor. In later years, buyers could even order an airplane hood ornament, modeled after the Spirit of St. Louis.
As a result of Franklin and Lindbergh’s connection, the Franklin Automobile Company played a major role in organizing the city’s reception festivities, alongside Mayor Charles Hanna.
Like Lindbergh, Hanna was an aviator, and had been instrumental in the city’s acquisition of the airfield at Amboy, recognizing the tremendous potential aviation possessed for the city’s economic and social development.
Lindbergh’s success proved Hanna prescient, as his flight is generally credited by historians as being the catalyst for the explosive growth of commercial aviation. None of that really mattered however to the 2,000 people that showed up at Amboy to see the world-famous Spirit of St. Louis touch down at two o’clock in the afternoon on a beautiful summer day in Central New York.
His plane was left on public display, guarded by state troopers, and, in the evening, illuminated with huge flood lights manufactured by Crouse Hinds.
After disembarking from his aircraft, Lindbergh was greeted by the city’s reception committee, which included Mayor Hanna, Mrs. Florence Knapp, Fairmount native and New York State’s first female Secretary of State, and Frank Barton, the secretary-treasurer of H.H. Franklin Manufacturing Co. Pushing past throngs of spectators and reporters, the group made their way to a long procession of Franklin cars, set to carry the dignitaries to Archbold Stadium for the official ceremonies.
The route from Camillus to Syracuse University’s campus was lined with tens of thousands of people engaged in “one continuous ovation,” as reported by The Post-Standard.
“Babies clapped their hands and old women cried,” as the parade made its way towards downtown. Flags unfurled, factory horns and locomotives blowing their horns in an incessant cacophony of celebration.
Patients at Syracuse Memorial Hospital were allegedly wheeled from their beds to the windows to see Lindbergh drive past in his four-wheeled air-cooled machine. Clinton Square was awash in confetti and revelry, as people lined the recently filled in boulevard and the rooftops of buildings.
The procession arrived at the iconic arched entrance to Archbold Stadium at 3:07, almost an hour after he landed.
A crowd of nearly 30,000, including the upper echelon of Syracuse’s elite, greeted Lindbergh like a conquering hero.
Mayor Hanna presented him with the key to the city before Lindbergh made a short speech to the crowd extolling the great benefits aviation would bring to mankind. According to many who recalled meeting Lindy then, he was painfully shy, thus he kept his remarks brief.
Over the ensuing years however, Lindbergh’s comfortability with crowds and public speaking grew, leading to his ill-fated political career with the controversial “America First” movement in the run up to the Second World War.
That evening, Lindbergh attended a gala in his honor at the magnificent Hotel Syracuse, then only three years old.
In a speech to the 750 guests, he commended Mayor Hanna and the city for their “progressive and far-sighted” actions in the field of aviation and for obtaining a proper municipal airfield, though he did suggest that the city invest in proper 2,500 feet runways.
He ended his remarks with an eye to the future, telling the guests that that constant action was necessary if Syracuse was “to keep the place at the forefront of aviation where you have placed yourselves.”
Heeding Lindy’s sage advice, the city spent millions on improvements, including the construction of three, 3,000 feet long runways. On August 28, 1928, the new Syracuse Municipal Airport was officially opened with a thrilling nighttime dedication attended by 10,000 residents.
Lindbergh never returned to Syracuse.
He did, however, drive the Franklin Car given to him in May of 1927 for years.
After the horrific kidnapping and murder of his son in 1932, Lindbergh and his wife left for Europe, in large part to escape the media frenzy they had lived in since his world changing flight.
In 1940, Lindbergh gave his Franklin to his friend, Henry Ford, for Ford’s new museum.
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