In 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh made history by flying non-stop from New York to Paris. A year later he was on the West Coast and actually stopped in Medford. It is not known what aircraft he was flying on that trip, as the “Spirit of St. Louis” had been donated to the Smithsonian Institution.
On July 4, 1939, Lindbergh stopped again in Medford to refuel his Curtis P-36 Army Air Corps pursuit-interceptor airplane. He was on his way to Seattle, where he met with the president of Boeing Corporation, a test pilot, Civil Aeronautics Authority officials and Howard Hughes. Hughes had flown to Seattle on a commercial flight under an assumed name.
Regarding the flight to Seattle, Lindbergh wrote in his travel log that he “tried to keep high enough above the trees to be able to jump in case my motor stopped.” He went on to say that if he couldn’t find a level field for landing at Seattle, he would cut the switch, pull the plane up into a stall and jump. He added, “There would be no use riding it down into those great trees of the Northwest.”
Source: Webber, Bert & Margie, “The Lure of Medford” Oregon: Webb Research Group Publishers, 1996.
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