When Amelia Earhart Crashed in Starved Rock Country (while driving a car)

Hidden

History

HIDDEN HISTORY takes a closer look at interesting but lesser known moments in Starved Rock Country’s past.

By Charles Stanley

The year before her stillunsolved 1937 disappearance over the Pacific Ocean, famed aviatrix Amelia Earhart deftly defied serious harm after a car wheel failed near La Salle.

Early in 1936, Earhart was on a speaking tour to promote her planned flight around the world.

On Wednesday, April 1, she spoke in DeKalb at Northern Illinois State Teachers College, now Northern Illinois University, as a guest of the Town Girls organization. The campus location was the auditorium in the 1899 “castle” building now known as Altgeld Hall.

The following day, DeKalb’s Daily

Chronicle newspaper reported Earhart was a “forceful talker” who had “delighted” a large audience with the stories of her famous flights.

During her talk, Earhart made a seemingly prophetic comparison to flying versus driving. Flying was safer, she said: That was because aviators were better trained in flying than motorists were in driving.

In answer to an audience question, “Earhart admitted that she travels faster than 40 miles per hour in her car,” but she noted that both she and her car had periodic examinations.

That night there was an unseasonable blizzard.

The snowfall in Ottawa was three inches, with more predicted, according to the Ottawa Daily Republican-Times newspaper on April 2.

Even so, Earhart was on the road the next morning driving a 1936 Terraplane Coupe Hardtop to an engagement in Jacksonville.

Earhart was a celebrity spokesperson for the Terraplane, and this was her third model, said Douglas Westfall, author of the 2014 book “Amelia Earhart’s Terraplane.” The first was a 1932 sedan, followed by a 1933 coupe convertible and, lastly, a 1936 coupe hardtop, Westfall said.

Driving south on snowy U.S. Route 51, Earhart’s Terraplane had a tire blowout 10 miles north of La Salle, the Ottawa newspaper reported. An under-inflated tire came loose from the rim, and the car went out of control.

“The machine swerved to the shoulder of the road, but was brought under control by (Earhart),” the Ottawa newspaper reported.

There is no record of how fast Earhart had been driving. But she once was stopped for speeding 80 mph in the eight-cylinder 1933 coupe convertible, Westfall said.

A tow truck was summoned from Miller-Calhan Motors in La Salle, and “the aviatrix accompanied the garage men to La Salle and remained there while the damage was repaired.” The building where the repairs were completed still stands at the southeast corner of Bucklin and Second streets.

“But Amelia did not content herself with sitting in the office, waiting for the mechanics to complete a check of her car,” said the La Salle newspaper, The Daily PostTribune. “She was out watching the men at work on her car. ‘I want a new valve cap on this tire’ and ‘this door lock needs repairs,’ were the remarks indicating her knowledge of things mechanical, a trait of the true flier.

“When the tire was spread out to find the defect she was one of the first to inspect the inside walls. There was no doubt but that she wanted to know that everything was in perfect condition before she resumed her trip to Jacksonville.”

Earhart told a reporter she had planned to both fly and drive on her tour, but there were too many places without airports where she planned to speak.

“Some towns have an airport but no hangar. And of course I wouldn’t leave my car outside overnight, much less my pet plane,” she told the newspaper.

The word about the famous flier’s presence in La Salle got around quickly.

“Numerous persons, hearing that the noted aviatrix was in the city, managed to see her at the garage during her brief stay,” the La Salle newspaper reported.

Earhart was back on the road in time to keep her evening speaking engagement before the Jacksonville Business and Professional Woman’s Club at the MacMurray College dining hall.

“The first woman of the skies was tired and with a perfect right to quiet and rest,” reported The Jacksonville Daily Journal on Friday, April 3, 1936. “Yesterday afternoon she narrowly escaped injury – she laughed about it – when a deflated tire blew off a spinning wheel near La Salle, Illinois.”