(Photo Provided) The front page of the May 21, 1927, Marietta Times.

When Lindbergh flew from New York to Paris in 1927 it made the front pages of newspapers all over the world, including The Marietta Times and The Parkersburg News.

The headline of the May 21 edition of The Times said it all LINDBERGH IS SIGHTED OVER IRELAND – Ocean spanned by flying fool heads for Paris. The front page of the News declaring LINDBERGH COMPLETES PARIS FLIGHT.

“An airplane, believed to be Captain Charles Lindbergh’s ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ was sighted over Smerwick Harbor, on the coast of Ireland at 5:30 (London Time) this afternoon,” The Times reported on the front page. He would soon land in Paris, and the world, and air travel would never be the same.

Neither would his life.

By the time he got to Paris he had been in the pilot’s seat for more than 33 hours. Darkness fell before he reached the city. He later wrote, “The sun went down shortly after passing Cherbourg and soon the beacons along the Paris-London airway became visible.

(Photo Provided) The Spirit of St. Louis after landing in Moundsville on Aug. 4, 1927.

“I first saw the lights of Paris a little before 10 p.m., or 5 p.m., New York time, and a few minutes later I was circling the Eiffel Tower at an altitude of about four thousand feet.”

Thousands waited for him at Le Bourget airfield where he landed an international star.

The News reported “The sandy haired son of the middle west dropped down out of the darkness at Le Bourget flying field a few miles from Paris at 10:21 o’clock tonight, 33 ½ hours after leaving Long Island — the first man in history to go from New York to Paris without changing seats.”

The flight would be a one-way ticket to hero status. He came home aboard the USS Memphis. The warship sailed up the Potomac to Washington where President Coolidge presented him with the Distinguished Flying Cross.

After celebrations in Washington and New York and a break to write the bestseller “We” Lindbergh and his plane began a national tour funded by the Daniel Guggenheim Fund. For three months he flew around the country, visiting all 48 states.

His trip landed him in our region over several days in August. He arrived in Cleveland on Aug. 1, 1927. From there he flew over Akron, Massillon and Canton on his way to Pittsburgh on Aug. 3. The next day he followed the Ohio River as he flew over East Liverpool and Steubenville on his way to Wheeling. The Wheeling airport did not yet exist, so he flew to a small airstrip in Moundsville and went by car to where a reported 100,000 people awaited his arrival. Many of the people had travelled aboard special trains from Cambridge, Washington, Pa. and Grafton, W.Va.

He spoke to a huge crowd gathered at the West Virginia Fairgrounds on Wheeling Island, his speech lasted less than three minutes before finishing with a simple “I thank you.” That night he was the guest of honor at a dinner at the Scottish Rite Cathedral. The next morning, he arrived early at the airstrip in Moundsville, taking off to his next stop on his nationwide tour, Dayton, making a stop in Columbus along the way. In all, he would visit 92 cities, give 147 speeches and ride 1,290 miles in parades.

The three-month tour promoted aviation to the millions of people that saw him firsthand during the trip that gave the aviation industry a huge boost.

In 1932 his first-born son, Charles Jr. was kidnapped and murdered. He later moved his family to Europe to escape the public’s obsession with the case, not returning until 1939. His views on the country and isolationism put him at odds with President Franklin Roosevelt. He later became an environmentalist and lived a quiet life in a small village on Maui, Hawaii, dying there in 1974.

The Spirit of St. Louis hangs in the main gallery of the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. alongside other icons of flight.

Art Smith is online manager of The Times. He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com.