A century ago on Nov. 3, an airmail pilot ran out of fuel in a snowstorm and parachuted from his plane over McLean County.
He landed about a mile south of Covell, walked to the village general store and asked the men inside if anyone had heard a plane crash.
Six and a half months later, Charles Lindbergh made aviation history as the first pilot to fly alone from New York to Paris.
A brick marker along Stringtown Road southwest of Bloomington was erected in 1977 by the Corn Belt Philatelic Society.
Members of EAA Chapter 129, the Bloomington-Normal chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association, are restoring it for the centennial.
"We have history close by," said John Rettick, a chapter member and career aviator. "At one time, no argument about it, the most famous man in the world… But he was pretty much nobody then."
The night of the jump
Lindbergh, then 24, was chief pilot for Robertson Aircraft Corp., which flew mail between St. Louis and Chicago with stops in Springfield and Peoria, according to the McLean County Museum of History.
He left St. Louis at 4:20 p.m. in a World War I-era biplane converted to carry mail.
After a stop in Springfield, he ran into snow and low clouds.
"He attempted to land in Peoria — he couldn't land there," said Doug Reeves, a chapter member and board member of the Prairie Aviation Museum. "He headed toward Bloomington, couldn't find that area either, and then obviously started running out of fuel."
With both fuel tanks empty, Lindbergh bailed out at roughly 13,000 feet. It was his fourth emergency parachute jump, and his second in about six weeks.
He landed on Robert Runge's farm and walked to Joe Williams' general store in Covell. B.K. "Pete" Thompson drove him to Bloomington to catch a train to Chicago, according to the museum.
"They took him to Bloomington," Rettick said. "He gets on a train, he goes to Chicago, gets another airplane to come back and look for the wrecked airplane."
The wreck is about 500 feet south of where the marker now stands. One mailbag had split open, but most of the mail survived, and Lindbergh flew it on to Chicago.
Pilots then had no air-to-ground radio or reliable weather forecasts. At night, they followed beacon lights spaced along the route, Reeves said.
"We would have flown from one beacon light to the next beacon light to the next beacon on the way to Chicago," he said. The Prairie Aviation Museum at Central Illinois Regional Airport displays one of those airport beacons.
"Especially at night, you have no maps to try to work from," Reeves said. "You had no ground navigation to go by, only these beacon lights."
By day, pilots followed railroad tracks, highways and towns, said Wayne Aldrich, a chapter member leading the restoration. On a cloudy night, that wasn't possible.
Bailing out wasn't unusual, Reeves said. "Reliability was not what you would think about it today."
Six months to Paris
"He bailed out of planes four times, and so this guy was a cool cat," Aldrich said. "A solo flight — something that had never been done before."
At the time of the crash, Rettick said, Lindbergh hadn't yet set his sights on the Orteig Prize, a $25,000 award for the first nonstop flight between New York and Paris. Reeves said Lindbergh first looked for backers in Peoria before St. Louis businessmen agreed to fund the attempt, which is why the plane was named the Spirit of St. Louis.
The plane had no forward windshield. Lindbergh looked out the side windows and navigated with a compass and charts.
"He generally knew which direction to fly and how long it could take him given the speeds he was anticipating," Aldrich said.
On May 20-21, 1927, Lindbergh flew just over 33 hours alone from New York to Paris, the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic.
"He was dozing off. He was having a hard time staying awake, 30-some hours in the air," Reeves said. "Tremendous feat for any individual at that particular time."
Rettick said he often gives rides in a vintage airplane and circles the Covell marker with young passengers. Most don't know Lindbergh's name, he said.
Part of the reason is politics, Rettick said. Before World War II, Lindbergh was an outspoken isolationist who clashed with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and he resigned his commission in the Army Air Corps Reserve in 1941.
Rettick said Lindbergh's work still shapes aviation. As an adviser to Pan American Airways, he helped plan routes across the Pacific and Latin America.
"He was a scientist," Rettick said. "Everything that he did, he did the scientific method of determining how to do something."
Lindbergh also helped design a glass perfusion pump with surgeon Alexis Carrel in the 1930s, an early step toward the artificial heart. During World War II, as a civilian adviser in the Pacific, he taught fighter pilots to extend their range by hundreds of miles.
"A lot of us are here because those people didn't die," Rettick said.
"Because of his drive towards aviation — which everybody needs a drive towards something — he was able to become the most famous man in the world," Rettick said.
Restoring the marker
A few of the marker's bricks are missing. The chapter plans to replace them with original bricks they recovered, repair the mortar, polish the plaque and add landscaping. He said the homeowners and the farmer have been supportive.
"It seems like everybody is very supportive of the restoration of the marker," Aldrich said.
The chapter is also documenting early air navigation in Central Illinois. Members have found a concrete "Lindbergh arrow" near Seward, Illinois — a large ground marker, once painted yellow or orange, that pointed pilots toward the next airport or city. They hope to clear it off.
"We're trying to inspire other people," Reeves said. "But we're also bringing history to life."
Starting Nov. 3, the chapter will post weekly installments tracing Lindbergh's path to Paris through May 21, 2027, the 100th anniversary of his landing. Updates are on the chapter's Lucky Lindy page.
"We think of getting on an airplane and flying someplace. It's very routine," Reeves said. "At that time, it was quite an exciting experience."
