Amelia Earhart is not someone you would associate with Miami but she has a very special connection to South Florida. Born on July 24, 1897, the famed aviator would go on to become the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She also authored many books about her experiences flying and was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety-Nines, an organization for female pilots.
In February 7, 1931 Amelia married publisher George Putnam. She spent some time in Ft. Pierce, Florida where her stepsons lived. She used to give flying lessons to George's son by Dorothy Binney, whose father invented Crayola Crayons.
In 1936 Amelia Earhart started planning a trip that would make her the first woman to fly around the world. There was a failed first attempt in March of 1937 when she flew west from California and blew a tire in Honolulu causing her plane to crash. This caused her to change her plans and may have ultimately affected her fate. Instead of flying west from California to Hawaii and over the Pacific she would fly in the opposite direction to avoid bad weather. This decision would force her to have to find tiny Howard Island in the Pacific at the end of a tiring journey. On May 21, 1937 Amelia along with her navigator Fred Noonan embarked on a second attempt to circumnavigate the globe. They flew from Oakland California to Miami and once they landed Amelia Earhart announced her intention to launch her attempt to fly around the world. On June 1, 1937 Amelia Earhart left for her final flight from an airfield originally opened by aviator Glenn Curtiss, It is now the site of a Hialeah police department and a UPS sorting facility. One month and 22,000 miles later after stops in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia, they took off from Lae, New Guinea. Amelia's last correspondence came from near Howland Island, an uninhabited coral island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean where she was scheduled to refuel. What happened to her after that is a mystery lost to history.
Amelia Earharts final flight is commemorated with a historical marker at the site of the municipal airport she took off from. For the two years, the Commission for Women collaborated with the GFWC Woman's Club of Hialeah to install a Florida historical marker for Amelia Earhart in front of the Hialeah Police Department Headquarters. The marker was unveiled on January 20, 2020. There is also a park about a mile away named for her. read more