Charles Lindbergh's Detroit roots

Charles Lindbergh's mother, Evangeline Land, graduated from Detroit Central High School and earned a chemistry degree from the University of Michigan. She was teaching science in Little Falls, Minnesota, when she met and married Swedish immigrant Charles August Lindbergh in 1901.

Charles August Lindbergh was a widower, 17 years older than Evangeline. He immigrated as a boy to the U.S. in 1860. A University of Michigan Law School graduate, he became a lawyer and was elected five times to Congress from Minnesota. Charles and Evangeline separated in 1918; he died in 1924.

Charles A. Lindbergh Jr. was born on Feb. 4, 1902, in Detroit, in his maternal grandparents' home. His mother came home to Detroit so that her uncle, Dr. Edwin Lodge, could deliver her son.

Lindbergh's maternal grandfather was Charles Henry Land (1847-1922), a dentist and inventor in Detroit.

Throughout his boyhood, during long visits to Detroit from his home in Minnesota, Lindbergh spent hundreds of hours in the basement laboratory of his grandfather's home, learning how to conduct scientific experiments.

In 1922, 20-year-old Charles Lindbergh leaves the University of Wisconsin, takes flying lessons in Nebraska, and makes his first solo flight. This photo shows his plane, a Curtiss "Jenny," flying over the Hotel Fort Shelby on Lafayette in 1922.

In 1922, with son Charles touring the country as an air circus acrobat, Evangeline Land Lindbergh returned to the city and taught chemistry at Cass Tech for the next two decades. She's seen here in 1927, enjoying newspaper coverage of her son.

In 1925, Lindbergh was hired as the chief pilot on a contract air mail route between St. Louis and Chicago. Pilots flew without navigation equipment between unlit airstrips, and crashes were all too frequent. But Lindbergh managed an impressive 99% delivery efficiency.

Despite the dangers, Lindbergh's mother accompanied him on barnstorming tours and sat next to him on mail sacks when he was a pilot for the airmail service.

Lindbergh services his plane, The Spirit of St. Louis, as he prepares for his historic solo flight from New York to Paris in May, 1927.

On May 20, 1927, he would take off from Long Island, New York, aiming to become the first pilot to fly solo from New York to Paris and claim a $25,000 reward.

Lindbergh dealt with fog, icing and sleep deprivation over his 33 1/2-hour flight. He had traveled more than 3,600 miles by the time he touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris.

Lindbergh immediately became the toast of Europe, celebrated here in France on June 10, 1927.

fter Lindbergh's historic flight, excited crowds mobbed the Spirit of St. Louis everywhere it landed, including this stop in Croydon, England.

Returning home, he toured the U.S. in 1927 with The Spirit of St. Louis, making 82 stops in 48 states, including this June ticker-tape parade in New York City.

In June 1927, Lindbergh flew the Spirit of St. Louis to Selfridge Field in Mount Clemens, where he was greeted by squadron commander Maj. Thomas Lamphier.

Prior to his barnstorming days, Lindbergh had graduated from military flight training as a 2nd lieutenant in the Army Air Service Reserve, antecedent to today's U.S. Air Force, and had been stationed at Selfridge Field in 1924.

When he returned to Selfridge Field in 1927, his Spirit of St. Louis was escorted by a squadron of 22 pursuit planes like the one he's sitting in here.

It's unclear whether "Old Charley II" on the Selfridge airplane referred to Lindbergh.

After his transatlantic flight, President Calvin Coolidge had directed that Lindbergh be promoted to colonel. He remained in the air corps reserves until 1941.

Twelve weeks after his celebrated achievement, Lindbergh made a stop in Detroit, where thousands turned out to celebrate the city's favorite son. His mother, Evangeline, was by his side.

Spectators packed sidewalks waiting for a glimpse of the Lindbergh motorcade.

Lindbergh waved to crowds lining the streets as he and his mother sat in the back seat of an open air, stretched-out Model T.

A phalanx of motorcycle policemen escorted the Lindberghs.

The motorcade stopped at Northwestern Field at Grand River near West Grand Boulevard, where a reported crowd of 50,000 had gathered.

A series of speakers lauded Lindbergh before he addressed the crowd.

Lindbergh spoke briefly about how America would become a "flying country," and that big cities such as Detroit would need airfields to accommodate and benefit from the coming boom in air travel. In a press conference later that day, he said he didn't know if there ever would be planes big enough to transport 100 passengers.

Then the motorcade traveled east to what is now the Wayne State University campus.

The destination was the three-story, Queen Anne-style home at 1120 West Forest where Lindbergh was born. (The house would be demolished in 1965.)

There, a plaque was unveiled, memorializing his historic achievement and Detroit roots.

“This tablet marks the birthplace of Captain Charles A. Lindbergh. The first aviator to fly from New York to Paris was born here, February 4, 1902, the son of Charles A. and Evangeline Lodge Lindbergh. After flying alone 3640 miles in 33 1/2 hours May 20-21, 1927, Captain Lindbergh was decorated by France, England, Belgium and Spain, and awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Calvin Coolidge, president of the United States.“

Before setting off for Grand Rapids on the next leg of his national goodwill tour, Lindbergh invited 63-year-old Henry Ford for a spin in the Spirit of St. Louis. It would be the only plane ride of the auto mogul's life.

Col. Lindbergh, left, is seen at Camp Skeel (the future Wurtsmith Air Force Base) in Oscoda, Michigan. From Nov. 5-11, 1927, he directed Air Corps crews as they practiced dropping 40-pound demolition bombs on targets.

Evangeline and Charles Lindbergh are seen with Evangeline's uncle, John C. Lodge, at Ford Airport in Dearborn in April 1928.

John C. Lodge, right, had served almost 30 years on the Detroit City Council and was elected mayor on a ticket advocating construction of the Ambassador Bridge. The Lodge expressway bears his name, even though he died in 1950 at age 87 and never drove a car.

In 1929, Lindbergh married Anne Morrow, daughter of a wealthy Wall Street financier. The couple settled in New Jersey while Lindbergh worked with Nobel Prize-winning surgeon Dr. Alexis Carrel to develop a heart pump.

Ever adventurous, Evangeline Lindbergh, left, returned in 1929 from a trip to Turkey. She's seen here with her aunt, Mrs. Edwin G. Lodge. She lived the remainder of her life in Detroit. Her son begged for privacy when he returned for her funeral in 1954.

In 1931, Lindbergh and his wife made a trip to Japan and China. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote about it in her book "North to the Orient."

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, photographed in a broadcasting studio in New York in 1932, told the nation about the horrors of the Chinese flood which she and her famous husband had observed the previous year on their flight to Asia. The couple would travel extensively abroad.

In 1932, the kidnapping and death of the Lindberghs' young son and the circus-like atmosphere of the trial that followed prompted their move to Europe until 1939.

By this time Anne was a pilot as well. In 1933 the couple flew to Natal, Brazil. She smiles here for the enthusiastic crowd that welcomed her and her husband.

In 1933, Charles and Anne Lindbergh went to France to revisit the site of his historic landing in 1927.

As World War II began in Europe, Lindbergh's reputation plummeted over his opposition to American involvement and the fact that he expressed anti-Semitic sentiments, and before the war received the Cross of the German Eagle from the Nazi regime. Here, he arrives at the Achgells Airplane Works in Bremen, Germany, in 1937.

An anti-intervention advocate, Lindbergh addresses a crowd at Soldier Field in Chicago on Aug. 4, 1940. Once America entered the war, though, he wanted to contribute, but was denied reinstatement to the Army Air Service Reserve. President Roosevelt's administration branded him a Nazi sympathizer.

Henry Ford, left, came to the rescue. An avowed enemy of President Roosevelt, he was happy to hire the 40-year-old aviator. Lindbergh agreed to come aboard for $666.66 per month, the same pay he had been receiving as a colonel in the reserves. He's seen here on his first day of work for the Ford Motor Co. on April 3, 1942.

The vastness of Ford's Willow Run plant stunned Lindbergh. He called it “the Grand Canyon of the mechanical world.” At 3.5 million square feet, it exceeded the Empire State Building’s floor space by 20 percent.

Maj. Thomas B. McGuire Jr., the second-highest scoring American ace of World War II, chats with Lindbergh, who lived in a hut at a Pacific base in 1944. Lindbergh was there to train the pilots in a technique for conserving fuel on long-distance missions. McQuire would die during a mission on Jan. 7, 1945.

After the war, the LIndberghs settled in Connecticut for 15 years. Charles became a champion of the conservation movement. Here, he looks at a rare monkey-eating eagle in the Philippines in 1971 that is an endangered species. He spent his final years in a cottage on Maui, Hawaii, and died there in 1974.