The 1929 dedication of Raleigh Municipal Airport (Paul Freeman, NC Division of Archives & History)

The planned community of Renaissance Park that is rising in the northwest quadrant of the intersection of South Wilmington Street and Tryon Road is located on the site of the Raleigh Municipal Airport that served this area during the early decades of the airline industry.

Dedicated in 1929, only 26 years after Wilber and Orville Wright’s historic flight on the North Carolina Outer Banks, the Raleigh Municipal Airport represented the area’s leap into the future of 20^th– century transportation that was lauded by such local notables as Raleigh News and Observer publisher Josephus Daniels and the then Secretary of State, Thad Eure, as well as the nationally- renowned World War 1 Flying Ace, Eddie Rickenbacker who was also the owner of Eastern Airlines. But perhaps the most intriguing personality to attend the Raleigh Airport dedication was Amelia Earhart, the female flyer who captured the imagination of a generation, and who inspired other young women to move into occupations that were heretofore closed to them.

Amelia Earhart was born in Atchison, Kansas in 1897 to a well-to-do family, and, as a child, was regarded as a tomboy. But this happy beginning was soon disrupted by her father’s alcoholism, and by all accounts, she had a troubled childhood punctuated by frequent moves and family upheavals. After several tries at various eastern colleges, in 1920 Amelia reunited with her family in California where air racer Frank Hawks offered her a 10-minute ride in his two-seater. This experience changed her life and launched what was to become a legendary aviation career.

A still from a 1931 movie of Amelia Earhart christening her plane at Raleigh Municipal Airport (Photo by James Denmark, copyright Jay Denmark of Denmark Studios)

Buy a copy of this and other photos, original image is 16mm film.

After learning to fly with the pioneer female aviator, Anita Snook, Amelia set a record for female aviators by being the first woman to fly at 14,000 feet. But this achievement was followed by additional family misfortunes, during which she was obliged to take a series of non-aviation jobs. However, in 1928, following Charles Lindbergh’s historic 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, she was asked to join pilot Wilmer Stultz and co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon on a trans-Atlantic flight to keep the flight log.

Thus, as the first woman to cross the Atlantic by air, she became a world-wide celebrity who was greeted in New York City with a ticker-tape parade and invited to the White House by President Calvin Coolidge. In 1932 she became the first woman to achieve a trans-Atlantic solo flight, and in 1935, the first pilot, man or woman, to solo from Honolulu to Oakland, California. These triumphs inspired plans to circumnavigate the globe at the equator, an endeavor that Amelia Earhart undertook with navigator Fred Noonan on July 2, 1937. The pair was lost in the North Pacific Ocean near Howland Island, and neither they nor their airplane were ever found.

Although the Raleigh Municipal Airport that hosted the storied Amelia Earhart is now gone, one vestige of her visit remains in the form of Stinson Drive on the North Carolina State University campus. This street commemorates Katherine Stinson, the first woman to graduate from the School of Engineering. This achievement was inspired by Amelia Earhart’s advice to the then 15-year old Katherine who was servicing an airplane on the runway when the famed aviatrix advised her to pursue an engineering education. Ms. Stinson earned an aeronautical engineering degree in 1941, and went on to be the technical assistant the chief of aircraft engineering at the Federal Aviation Administration. As a result of Ms. Stinson’s accomplishments, Amelia Earhart’s legacy survives in south west Raleigh today.

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