(Image courtesy National Air and Space Museum)

The 350-acre Warren G. Magnuson Park sits on a mile-long stretch of Lake Washington shoreline in Seattle and is a popular spot for hiking, boating, swimming, kite-flying and more.

But long before it became the city’s second-largest park, this prime piece of real estate on the Sand Point peninsula in northeast Seattle was a military base – Sand Point Naval Air Station – and a spot where early aviation history was made.

On April 6, 1924, four U.S. Army planes, each with two crewmembers, took off from what was then Sand Point Airfield.

Their goal: complete the first circumnavigation of the globe by air.

The four Douglas World Cruisers were named Seattle, Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans.

And due to weight restrictions, no more than 300 pounds of supplies were loaded into each open-cockpit plane.

That meant equipment such as parachutes and life preservers got left behind. 

The journey was far from easy. On their way around the world, the team encountered freezing temperatures, typhoons, mechanical breakdowns, crashes, and other obstacles.

But, despite losing two of the original four planes, on September 28, 1924, the Chicago, the New Orleans, and the Boston II (a replacement) landed back at Sand Point.

The journey had taken 175 days, the crew had made 74 stops, and the team had covered about 27,550 miles.

Today, that first flight around the world is marked with a concrete pillar on a small island at the entrance of the former Naval Air Station. At the top of the pillar is a large pair of bird wings. At the bottom is a plaque with the dates of the flight and the names of the crewmen and their planes.

Want to see it? It’s at 7400 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA (At the park entrance guardhouse)

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