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Look back: Lambert Flying Field, 1923
Date: 2/5/2010 Album ID: 938445
Photos by Post-Dispatch staff photographers
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As St. Louis’ first trained pilot, aviation pioneer Albert Bond Lambert was part of a group that established the Kinloch flying field in northwest St. Louis County. He later became the owner, and sold it to the city on Feb. 8, 1928. The purchase was the beginning of today's Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, named in his honor.
Albert Bond Lambert as an Army lieutenant in 1917, when he was a balloon-flight instructor at a training camp at South Grand Boulevard and Meramec Street in south St. Louis. He rose to major before being discharged. Lambert's family owned Lambert Pharmacal Co. in St. Louis, makers of Listerine. He was a company officer until 1927, but spent most of his early life as an aviation pioneer. The city's first trained pilot, he learned how to fly from Orville Wright, one of the famous flying brothers, and he promoted airplane and balloon flying. In 1920, he was part of a group that established the Kinloch flying field in northwest St. Louis County, and Lambert became the owner before selling it to the city of St. Louis on Feb. 8, 1928. The purchase was the beginning of today's Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, named in his honor. He also served on the St. Louis City Council, one of its two legislative chambers before the city created its Board of Aldermen in 1914, and was on the St. Louis Police Board from 1933 to 1941. He was working on post-war plans to expand the airport when he died Nov. 12, 1946, at age 70. (Post-Dispatch)
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Albert Bond Lambert, left, with his flight instructor, Orville Wright, on May 18, 1910. Orville Wright was the first person to achieve powered flight on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, N.C., on an airplane he built with his brother, Wilbur. Lambert held international pilot's license No. 61. The photograph, supplied by Lambert's family after his death, does not identify a location. But James J. Horgan, in his book, City of Flight, The History of Aviation in St. Louis, says it probably was taken in Dayton, Ohio, the Wright brothers' hometown.
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Albert Bond Lambert at the controls of his airplane, built by the Wright Brothers, which he flew from Kinloch to the Glen Echo Country Club in Normandy in 1910. (Post-Dispatch)
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Fans of aviation and the curious gather at the Kinloch flying field in 1910 for the International Aviation Meet, which Lambert helped to organize. The site is part of today's Lambert Field. (Post-Dispatch)
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Albert Bond Lambert (left) with Archibald Hoxsey, another early aviator whose achievements included a non-stop flight from Springfield, Ill, to St. Louis, to attend the International Aviation Meet. For a while, his flight stood as distance record. At the air show at Kinloch, Hoxsey gave President Theodore Roosevelt his -- and the presidency's -- first flight.
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Army Maj. Albert Bond Lambert (second from right) with Army and Navy officers during World War I at the balloon training camp at South Grand Boulevard and Meramec Street. The military used balloons during the war mainly for battlefield reconnaissance. Lambert's family provided this photo from his files after his death.
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Albert Bond Lambert (right) and pilot William B. Robertson prepare to take off July 12,1923, at Kinloch field with a cornerstone tied to a rope. Lambert cut the rope in flight, allowing the stone to drop where a hanger was to be built in preparation for the International Air Race in October 1923. Among the young pilots attracted to the race was Charles Lindbergh. Robertson, namesake of the old north St. Louis County community near the airport, also was a founder of the Missouri Air National Guard and Robertson Aircraft Corp., an early air-mail and passenger company. He hired Lindbergh to fly mail and helped Lambert create the airport. Robertson was among 10 persons killed, including Mayor William Dee Becker, on Aug. 1, 1943, in a crash of one of his company's military gliders at Lambert Field. They were flying in a demonstration when one of the wings broke away. (Post-Dispatch)
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F.C. Webb, a construction contractor, rides a horse to inspect the grading for improvements in 1923 to the Kinloch flying field, by then known as the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field. (Post-Dispatch)
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The airport terminal, parking lot and tarmac in 1923. Albert Bond Lambert led the efforts to improve and expand it with graded runways and taxiways. (Post-Dispatch)
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Crowds at Lambert Field during the 17-day endurance flight by Dale Jackson and Forrest O'Brine, who took turns piloting and napping in their St. Louis-made Robin airplane until they landed on July 30, 1929. Another plane, also built by Curtiss-Robertson Airplane Co., served as the tanker, dropping a hose to Jackson and O'Brine to periodically refuel their 125-gallon tank. Theirs was among many lengthy flights in a craze of endurance flying at the end of the Roaring '20s. Their record of 420 hours, 21 minutes and 30 seconds aloft stood for nearly a year. (Post-Dispatch)
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Albert Bond Lambert buys tickets June 18, 1930, from Lee Christopher (left) and Florence Vanek, two health gypsies for the local Tuberculosis Society, for a benefit baseball game at Sportsman's Park. He was a local celebrity and hero. (Post-Dispatch)
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Albert Bond Lambert (right) with William Robertson and his wife, Marjorie Robertson, before they board a new Curtiss Kingbird on Sept. 5, 1930, to fly up to the Chicago Air Race. (Post-Dispatch)
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Some of the Lambert family gathers at Forest Park on Oct. 12, 1932, before a demonstration of air-defense searchlights that evening. Shown are, from left, Myrtle Lambert, Lambert's wife; Army Lt. Col. John Paegelow of Scott Field; Myrtle Lambert, the Lambert's daughter; Albert Bond Lambert; and Army Col. J.A. Green. More than 10,000 people went to the park that night to watch five searchlights find a dirigible and Army airplanes that flew overhead. A Post-Dispatch reporter who flew in one of the planes wrote that the beams provided blinding blue radiance. (Post-Dispatch)
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Archie League, the night radio dispatcher at Lambert-St. Louis Airport, in the control tower on April 15, 1936. (Post-Dispatch)
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Albert Bond Lambert (left) reviews St. Louis police officers in 1937, shortly after he became president of the St. Louis Police Board. Lambert served on the board from 1933 to 1941 and was president for his last four years of service. An Army major during World War I, Lambert introduced military-style drill to the police department during his time as president. Accompanying him is police Lt. Col. E. H. Bertram. (Post-Dispatch)
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An airliner skidded on its nose during a takeoff attempt on June 19, 1938, at Lambert-St. Louis Airport. The pilots said the wheels began to retract during their takeoff for a flight to New Orleans. The two pilots and four passengers, none of them injured, got off the plane on a ladder, walked to another plane and departed a short time later. The newspaper said the repairs would cost about $3,000. (Post-Dispatch)
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The airport's new $12,000 refreshment stand, opened in June 1940. The roof garden, with tables and chairs, offers a fine view of activities on the landing field, the newspaper reported. (Post-Dispatch)
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Caption: A Ford Tri-motor passenger plane of Transcontinental & Western Air Inc., forerunner of Trans World Airlines, is parked in front of Lambert Field's new $152,000 Lambert Field on its opening day, June 1, 1933. It was on Lindbergh Boulevard on the north side of the airport, across the runways from the current terminal. It was demolished in 1978.
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Edward Leigh of Webb City, Mo., buys the first ticket at the new terminal on June 1, 1933.
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Passengers buy tickets in the Lambert terminal in 1941. (Post-Dispatch)
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