Each year July 24 is recognized as National Amelia Earhart Day, the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, who was born on that day in 1897. In 1933, Amelia Earhart and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt flew together from Washington, D.C. to Baltimore, each taking a turn to fly the plane themselves. And there’s a lot more Maryland aviation history to discover:
HAGERSTOWN AVIATION MUSEUM
The Hagerstown Aviation Museum, Inc. is an all volunteer organization corporation dedicated to the preservation and promotion of the Hagerstown area’s more than 90 years of extraordinary aviation history. Over the past five years the museum has been donated over 15 aircraft, most of which were built in Hagerstown at Fairchild Aircraft.
In 2015, the Museum received a grant from Preservation Maryland’s Heritage Fund grant program towards a feasibility study to rehabilitation of a historic hanger on the Fairchild Aircraft manufacturing campus. This unique hanger is made entirely out of wood because steel was scarce during the time of it’s construction in during World War II – this poses challenged for maintenance and adaptive reuse.
COLLEGE PARK AVIATION MUSEUM
And in honor of Amelia Earhart’s legacy, you can spend the day exploring aviation history at the College Park Aviation Museum, that is also the world’s oldest continuously operating airport and is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. The College Park airport associated with the Museum is listed on the National Register for Historic Places and the Aviation Museum is dedicated to preserving and promoting aviation innovations at College Park Airport and in Prince George’s County while fostering research, inventiveness, and lifelong curiosity about the history and science of flight.
FUN FACT
There is an international non-profit organization, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, that hosts an annual conference to share new research and findings in solving the mystery of Amelia Earhart’s disappearance.