City history / Military
Charles Lindbergh
1902–1974 · aviator, military officer, author
The pilot of the first solo nonstop New York–Paris flight (1927) was born in his grandfather's house on West Forest Avenue; his mother was a Detroit chemistry teacher.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Kīpahulu, Maui, Hawaii
aged 72- Birth name
- Charles Augustus Lindbergh
- Also known as
- Lucky Lindy · The Lone Eagle
- Detroit years
- 1902
- Field
- City history, Military
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Charles Lindbergh was born in Detroit on February 4, 1902, in the West Forest Avenue home of his maternal grandfather, the dentist and inventor Charles H. Land. His mother, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, came from a Detroit family; the boy grew up mostly in Little Falls, Minnesota, and Washington, D.C. Evangeline later returned to the city and taught chemistry at Cass Technical High School. When her son landed in Paris in May 1927, a crowd of nearly a thousand gathered around her Detroit house, and the city gave the flier a hero's welcome that summer. Lindbergh kept visiting his mother in Detroit and formed a long friendship with Henry Ford. His later isolationism and antisemitic remarks, voiced with the America First Committee before Pearl Harbor, remain a lasting stain on his reputation. The birth house was demolished in 1973.
Highlights
- First solo nonstop transatlantic flight, New York to Paris, May 20–21, 1927
- Medal of Honor and Distinguished Flying Cross for the flight
- Time magazine's first Man of the Year (1927)
- Pulitzer Prize for the memoir The Spirit of St. Louis (1954)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Born here · 1902
Lindbergh birthplace (Land family home)
Demolished · 1973
His grandfather Dr. Charles H. Land's house; torn down in 1973 for housing, and its 1927 historical marker has been removed.
Related place · 1920s–1940s
Cass Technical High School
His mother, Evangeline Lodge Land Lindbergh, taught chemistry at the school; it now occupies a newer building than the one she taught in.