Charles Lindbergh, center, helped dedicate greater Des Moines’ second airfield in 1927.
By Dave Elbert
Des Moines was already a leader in air travel when Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis airplane here in 1927, three months after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic.
Two years earlier on July 1, 1925 — a century ago — Des Moines was a stop on one of the earliest transcontinental airmail routes. Temperatures hit 104 degrees that day, and they were still in the sticky 90s when an evening crowd of more than 40,000 gathered at the city’s first airfield, a pasture just beyond the city limits off Vandalia Road at Southeast 30th Street.
“A single engine plane from Chicago dropped out of a darkening sky” at 9:50 p.m. into the beams of giant searchlights before landing on grass, the Des Moines Tribune reported.
When the airmail pilot Reuben Wagner stepped out of the plane, the first to greet him was 94-year-old James Carss, who had arrived in Des Moines in 1866, riding on the cowcatcher of the first railroad train to reach Iowa’s new capital. Officials gave Wagner an engraved cigarette case. (Photo: Des Moines Tribune)
While the post office band played “The Iowa Corn Song,” a crew unloaded the mail and loaded 10,000 local letters onto two different airplanes, which took off at 10:02 and 10:08 p.m. for Omaha and the West Coast. Later that night, those airplanes crossed paths with eastbound airmail, which arrived in Des Moines at 3 a.m.
Unfortunately, that first landing field was low and prone to fog and flooding. Two years later a second landing strip was carved from farmland near Altoona, where Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino stands today.
On Aug. 19, 1927, Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis circled the Iowa State Fairgrounds before landing in Altoona, where he dedicated Des Moines’ first official “flying field.” More than 50,000 were on hand for the landing. The enormous crowd followed Lindbergh’s car 10 miles to the Hotel Fort Des Moines, forming what was described as “the longest parade in Iowa history.”
A hangar was built at the Altoona field, but it and the airport were moved in 1931 to a more easily accessible location four miles south of downtown. City leaders considered as many as 80 sites before choosing 160 acres along Fleur Drive, where the airport remains. (Pictured: The first passenger terminal at the current location.)
The chamber of commerce was a driving force behind all three of Des Moines’ airfields. In addition to helping with site selection and financing, business leaders lobbied the Legislature for laws, approved in 1929, that allowed cities to spend tax dollars on airports.
Des Moines’ first municipal airport director was Arthur Thomas, who served from 1925 until he retired in 1965.
“All the time I was out there at Altoona,” he later told the Des Moines Tribune, “I felt sure that wasn’t going to be the Des Moines airport.” While he waited for the relocation, he said, “I wrote letters to every airport in the world I could think of. I would slip a dollar bill in the envelope and ask them to send me all the literature they had.”
Thomas received responses from all over the country, as well as England, France and Germany. Much of the correspondence had to be translated, but the suggestions became the basis for rules and procedures that were copied by airfields across the country and world.
Speaking of airports . . .
Check out an exclusive look at five major artworks commissioned for the Des Moines International Airport’s $445 million addition. It’s set to open in 2027, a century after Charles Lindbergh’s famous visit. The story is part of the new issue that was unveiled Tuesday night.
Pictured: A rendering of “The River”by Gordon Huether of Napa, California, courtesy of the Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation.
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