At the time of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Lindbergh’s flight from New York to Paris, The Charles A. Lindbergh Fund was established. This organization still exists with the name changed to the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation. If you are interested in the Foundation’s history and objectives, you can skip over to their web site by clicking on this URL: http://www.lindberghfoundation.org/ By the time I became involved with the Lindbergh Historic Site, the Lindbergh Foundation was picking up speed in their stated purpose of promoting a balance between technology and the environment.

George Dade presents
commemorative, framed,
document and Lindbergh
Jenny Restoration Crew Photo
to Lindbergh Historic Site
Manager, Chuck Stone,
Summer 1981.

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On a Friday night, before the scheduled show opening on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I loaded the exhibit materials into our Chevy Love Pickup and headed for Minneapolis in a real snow storm. I recall that the piles of snow had covered many of the directional signs, making it even harder for a country boy to find his way into the big city. Arriving at the bank, I parked next to a large semi that contained the disassembled Jenny. I joined the crew, hauling wings, tail assembly, fuselage and smaller parts up the escalator to the second floor that would house our exhibit. We worked on into the night and eventually, with my own truck unloaded, fell into my bed at our daughter’s home in south Minneapolis. It was soon back to work for the entire team. The Jenny crew came with the Jenny from New York. These were a few of the 40+ volunteers who had actually restored the aircraft in George Dade’s remodeled basement under his leadership. We gave them a lift when needed, but concentrated on getting our exhibit mounted on the birch door panels that were being assembled under the guidance of a room layout manager.

The exhibit opened on Monday morning with participants of the Lindbergh Family, the Lindbergh Foundation, and visiting dignitaries from around the U.S. It looked just smashing, as you can see by the color photo of the exhibit, as it was just before Thanksgiving evening, 1982. Exhausted and thankful, I drove back to Little Falls to join my wife for the Thanksgiving celebration. That evening, well fed, we sat down to watch the evening news. What was the main story?

I sat in my chair in total disbelief. The building looked like a torch from about the 6th to the top floors (about 17, as I remember). The announcer told the world that the Jenny had gone up in smoke, along with the entire bank contents. After a few phone calls, I agreed to meet the Lindbergh Fund folks at the bank the next morning. We got together, on schedule, and the Fire Chief, on site, took us on a tour through the building that could be safely toured. There was Lindbergh’s Volkswagen, on the first floor, intact, though standing in a couple of inches of water. Up on the atrium level, 2nd floor, his motorcycle was intact, our exhibits were intact, all standing in an inch or more of water. Hanging from the third floor ceiling was the Jenny, ready to fly away with just a few drops of water on her. As we toured above and saw office machines melted into blobs of metal, we realized what must have happened. There was a fire stop floor at the sixth floor level. The fire had been started, supposedly by children playing with a gas torch they had found, in the wreckage of a building being torn down next door. The fire had started there, blasted across the alley through the banks windows at the sixth floor level and set everything from the sixth floor on up on fire. The air feeding the fire above, sucked fresh cool air in through out exhibit areas. Water put on the fire, ran down the stairwells and elevator shafts.