Fresh art (and history) at St. Louis Lambert Int’l Airport

There’s a new glass mural at St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) honoring the life and legacy of airport founder Major Albert Bond Lambert.

Born in 1875, Albert Lambert was an avid balloonist and an accomplished golfer who competed in the 1900 and 1904 summer Olympics. And, lucky for us, he was also an aviation enthusiast who, after taking a ride in a plane piloted by Orville Wright, took flying lessons from the Wright Brothers’ company. In 1911, Lambert became the first licensed pilot in St. Louis.

In 1920, Lambert and the Missouri Aeronautical Society leased farmland to serve as an airfield for St. Louis. And it was Lambert, whose family owned the pharmaceutical company that made Listerine, who paid to have the land developed as an airfield. In 1925, when the lease ran out, Lambert purchased the airfield property. He sold it in 1928 to the city of St. Louis, at cost.

The new mural, “Dream Beyond the Clouds,” was designed by Martin Donlin. And in the video, below, Donlin describes the artistic inspiration for the mural design, the ‘making-of’ the mural, and what he learned about the airport’s namesake.

You’ll want to see the mural up close. Look for it in Terminal One, across from entry door 4.

Thanks for visiting Stuck at the Airport. Subscribe to get daily travel tidbits. And follow me on Twitter at @hbaskas and Instagram.