Amelia Earhart

The surprising home of Amelia Earhart’s flight jacket

aviation, Aviation history, History, Museums, , ,
Buffalo Bill

Courtesy Buffalo Bill Center of the West

I recently had the great pleasure of spending a day touring the five first-rate museums that make up the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. Formerly the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the recently expanded center is home to the Cody Firearms Museum, The Plains Indian Museum, The Draper Natural History Museum, the Whitney Western Art Museum and, my favorite, the Buffalo Bill Museum, which tells the story of the American West through both the private life of William F. Cody and his public life as the showman who created the pageant known as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show.

Buffalo bill poster

One of the great treats during my day at the museum with a few other journalists was going on a private tour with the curator of each museum and having a chance to see the back rooms.

And – lo and behold – when we went behind the scenes at the Buffalo Bill Museum with John Rumm, senior curator of American History and the curator of the museum, he showed us a box that contained Amelia Earhart’s leather flight jacket. This is the jacket Earhart is  seen wearing in a lot of photographs from the 1920s and 30s and which she likely wore on her historic flight across the Atlantic.

AmeliaEarhart-LeatherJacket

Light brown leather jacket owned and worn by Amelia Earhart on several of her historic flights. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY, USA.

What’s that jacket doing in the collection of the Buffalo Bill Museum?

According to Rumm, Earhart and her husband, George Palmer Putnam, had bought property in Wyoming around 1934 from a friend of theirs, Carl Dunrud, and asked him to begin building a cabin on the site.

Then, in 1937, before heading out for that ill-fated attempt to circumnavigate the world, Earhart began sending Dunrud some of her personal possessions for safekeeping. Included among those items was the flight jacket and a buffalo coat from the 1870s (below) given to her by the Western movie star William S. Hart.

AmeliaEarhart-BuffaloCoat

Rumm says for many years the buffalo coat was displayed and identified as having belonged to Buffalo Bill. But when Rumm took a close look at the records, he cleared up that mistake.

AmeliaRanchPhoto-OnFence

Amelia Earhart and Carl Dunrud at the Double D Ranch in northwest Wyoming, ca. 1935. Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, WY, USA.

 

Bonus features on Oakland Int’l Airport website

Airport guides, Aviation history, Free Stuff, Fun Stuff, History, Kids, , , ,

Poke around on some airport websites and you’ll find some fun, surprising and educational stuff.

Case in point: the Oakland International Airport (OAK) site, which has a link to the Exploratorium’s instructions on how to fold a paper airplane, information about the Oakland Aviation Museum, which sits on the airport’s North Field,

and a great historical video about the history of the airport and its connections to Charles Lindbergh, Amelia Earhart and other aviation pioneers.

You can watch the entire 20-minute video, or see bite-size segments of the film on the OAK website.

Souvenir Sunday: Amelia Earhart luggage

Air Travel, aviation, Aviation history, Baggage, Celebrities, Exhibits, History, Museums, Souvenir Sunday, Souvenirs, , ,

Earlier this week, while waiting for Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger’s presentation at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, I spent some time in the Amelia Earhart exhibit.  And while I don’t think I’ll take up flying my own plane anytime soon, I keep thinking about getting some new luggage.

Amelia Earhart endorsed a long list of products ranging from cars, cigarettes and clothing to what one press release described as nothing less than “the first truly practical and genuine airplane luggage.”

Earhart may have disappeared in 1937, but it appears a line of luggage bearing her name was produced well into the 1990’s.   And while I haven’t come upon anything from that line in the thrift stores near me, I did poke around the Museum of Flight gift shop to see if I could find something under $10 and “Amelia” for today’s Souvenir Sunday feature.

The only items that fit the bill were a few young adults books, including this one from the National Geographic Children’s Books series that includes photos, quotes from Earhart’s writings, theories about how she vanished, and maps of the route she followed on her last flight.

Capt. Sullenberger and Amelia Earhart at the Museum of Flight

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Monday evening I was fortunate to be in the audience at Seattle’s Museum of Flight for a  presentation by the recently retired Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the now-legendary pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 who was able to successfully land a plane in New York City’s Hudson River.

He began the evening by showing the NTSB’s animated version of the US Airways 1549 flight path (below) and then went on to talk a bit about his family, his upbringing, his training as a pilot, the importance of preparation and teamwork, and his philosophy of work and life. After he was done, some of the kids in the audience got to ask a few questions as did some of the aviation geeks from our high-tech community.

(Here’s a link to a more detailed report on the evening by SeattlePI.com aerospace reporter Aubrey Cohen)

Before Captain Sullenberger’s speech, I spent some time in the Amelia Earhart exhibit, which will be at the museum until May, 2010. In addition to photo panels and film clips telling Ms. Earhart’s life story, there’s a section showing some of the products she endorsed to help pay the bills, including Amelia Earhart luggage and Lucky Strike cigarettes.

All in all, quite an inspiring evening.

Souvenir Sunday at Milwaukee’s General Mitchel Int’l Airport

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Happy Souvenir Sunday!

On Sunday here at Stuck at the Airport, we take a look at some of the fun, local, inexpensive and, ideally, somewhat offbeat things for sale at airports around the country.

This week, the folks at General Mitchell International Airport (MKE)  in Milwaukee, Wisconsin sent over some suggestions:

MKE jelly belly candy

First up: Jelly Belly candy.

Sure, these treats are are  for sale in lots of places, but you have a good excuse to buy ‘em here because the Jelly Belly Center – a candy warehouse with a factory tour – is in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, about a half hour away from the airport.

No time for the tour? Check out the on-line Jelly Bean Museum of Bean Art, which is filled with big, colorful jelly bean portraits of Elvis (three versions!), James Dean, Larry King, Laurel & Hardy, George Clooney, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Queen Elizabeth II, and others. The gallery also includes this jelly bean portrait of Amelia Earhart:

MKE - Amelia Earhart Jelly Bean portrait

OK, back to Milwaukee’s Mitchell Airport and Souvenir Sunday…

Not a sweets fan? Well, cheese and beer are big in Milwaukee, so it makes sense that this Cheddar Beer Soup is for sale a the airport. The instructions seem simple enough: add water and beer!

MKE - Chedder Beer Soup

So… thinking of doing a little shopping at MKE?

Keep in mind that in addition to a used book store – a rarity at an airport – MKE has a great aviation museum on site and, befitting the city that’s home to Harley Davidson, there’s free parking for motorcycles in the airport parking garage. (Four-wheeled vehicles get a good deal too: the airport offers $5 supersaver  parking.)

Souvenir Sunday one

Have you found a great souvenir at an airport lately? If it’s under $10, “of” the city or region and, ideally a bit offbeat, snap a photo and send it along. It might show up in a future edition of Souvenir Sunday.

Happy Birthday to the First Lady of Flight

Events, History

Amelia Earhart, one of the world’s most famous aviators, was born on this day in Atchison, Kansas in 1898.

You can learn all about “the Golden Girl of Aviation,” or “Lady Lindy,” and see statues of her in various spots around the country, including the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum in Atchison and at the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, California, where Earhart honed her skills before heading out to set and smash records:

In 1928, Earhart – flying as a passenger – was the first woman on a transatlantic flight

In 1932 she was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic;

In 1935 Earhart was the first pilot to fly from Hawaii to the U.S. mainland and;

In 1937, sadly and mysteriously, she and navigator Bill Noonan disappeared somewhere in the Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world.

Bonus: Here’s a link to a search that turned up a great photo of Ms. Earhart standing in front of her plane Lockheed Electra at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, back when it was called Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport.