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I was recently on an Authority business trip checking out Centralized Airport Loading Docks (pictured) in Calgary, Minneapolis and Detroit. The Centralized Loading Dock project is currently in the Capital Improvement Program for SDIA. Sometimes when you least expect it, the Goodwill Ambassador Program training comes in handy. While in Minneapolis, the Assistant Airport Director there asked me why SDIA is referred to as Lindbergh Field. I was able to remember that Ryan Airlines built the Spirit of St. Louis in San Diego and that Charles Lindbergh himself authorized our airport to be named in his honor.
She then told me a fact that I didn’t know -- Charles Lindbergh grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota . . . and Lindbergh Terminal at Minneapolis-St.Paul International Airport is named for him. By the way, Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is the major domestic hub for Northwest Airlines and the home of Sun Country Airlines -- which both serve SDIA nonstop from Minneapolis.
Oh, and the next time you find yourself changing planes in the Twin Cities, I highly recommend a visit to the organic French Meadow Bakery -- located in their airport adjacent to the E Concourse. The fruit tarts are awesome.
3 comments:
Being from Minnesota myself, it is so refreshing to know where to get an awesome fruit tart. Go Gophers!!
Ryan's story about the common threads uniting San Diego International Airport and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is a fascinating history lesson about an aviation pioneer, Charles Lindbergh. To think, the two airports are so far apart, but share his famous name! I look forward to more interesting perspectives from the Goodwill Ambassabloggers! Kudos to the Airport for creating such an innovative blog.
There is actually yet a THIRD Lindbergh Field in existence: in Winslow, Arizona.
Over the Christmas holiday week, my family and I visited northern Arizona, including the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest. En route to the latter, we spent a night at the grandiose La Posada Hotel, the last of the great railroad hotels built before the Great Depression. (It's worthy of a story unto itself; its restoration catapulted the man behind it into the office of mayor of Winslow and he's now a candidate for Congress, having done much to restore the civic pride of the town.)
Winslow's other claim to fame is a mention in the Eagles' song "Take It Easy", which speaks of 'standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona'--and indeed that corner is prominently featured in town today.
Winslow was not only a major railroad town (though it remains the headquaters of the Santa Fe line). Its regional airport was actually DESIGNED by Charles Lindbergh himself as a refueling point in the first transcontinental air service. Thus it retain's the aviator's name today (and he--along with Amelia Earhart, Howard Hughes, and many actors and presidents--was among the many distinguished guests in the history of La Posada too!)
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