Zeppelin flies over El Paso on flight around the world

On Aug. 27, 1929, the Graf Zeppelin flew over El Paso. This April 29, 1956, article describes the events of the day:

Visited EP on flight around world

People climbed to the tops of buildings and jammed Scenic Drive with their cars Aug. 27, 1929, for a look at an airship three times as long as the County Courthouse block.

The Graf Zeppelin, pre-Hitler Germany’s greatest showpiece, was to pass over El Paso on her record setting round-the-world flight.

Leaving her home base at Friedrichshafen, Germany, Aug. 14, she had traveled 13 days before reaching El Paso.

Roughest part of the entire round-the-world trip via Tokyo, Los Angeles and Lakehurst, N.J., was from west of Phoenix, Arizona, to Columbus, New Mexico.

In that stretch the mammoth five-motored, silver-painted sausage hit strong headwinds and rough air currents which buffeted her like a cloud in a hurricane and slowed her arrival over El Paso greatly.

Originally to arrive over El Paso between 8:30 and 10 a.m., she did not negotiate the Pass of the North (with considerable difficulty because of winds) until 5:17 p.m.

She was than 16 hours out of Los Angeles.

The zepp’s captain, Dr. Hugo Eckener, had a crew of 38 and 20 passengers.

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First world trip

The Graf’s flight was the first round-the-world flight by a zeppelin. She also had been the first to cross the Atlantic with paid passengers, making her maiden voyage between Friedrichshafen and Lakehurst Oct. 11-15, 1928.

Although the Graf did not stop here, El Paso prepared an aerial reception fitting for such a great visitor.

U.S. Commissioner Henry C. Clifton recalled:

“The Rio Grande Oil Company had a 10-passenger tri-motored Fokker ‘aeroplane’…Arthur M. Lockhart, manager of the Rio Grande Oil Company invited several of his friends, including me, to fly with him to Tucson, Arizona, to escort the zeppelin to El Paso.

The group consisted of Lockhart, Hubert Hunter, editor of The El Paso Times, Henry Fletcher, president of Acme Laundry, Dr. Hal Gambrell, Joe Gandara, manager of the Desert Art Shop, who bright along his motion picture camera…”

The zeppelin bounced so heavily that one watcher, from a distance, thought it had gone down and turned in a false alarm.

“There were numerous cumulus clouds in the sky,” Clifton, who was then president of the local Packard Auto agency, recalled.

“Each time our plane flew under one of these clouds it dropped as though it were going to crash, but did not, of course.

“Hubert Hunter fell out of his seat into the aisle.”

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‘Considerable crate’

Hunter did not mention his fall in his story on the Graf. He wrote:

“The Rio Grande tri-motored Fokker is considerable of a crate. It has everything. There is a writing desk with typewriter, and another writing desk with a book compartment. There are easy chairs, handsome furnishings; a reclining chair; a toilet compartment, a hidden place whence at intervals some trays of soft (this was during prohibition) drinks, well-iced.

A German newspaperman aboard the dirigible wrote a story and dropped it on El Paso, from where it went over news wires to the world.

Wrote Karl H. von Wiegand, Universal Service correspondent aboard the zeppelin:

“Arizona and New Mexico gave the Graf Zeppelin the ‘rockiest’ time we have had on the entire world flight. From early this morning near the California-Arizona-Mexico corner until this afternoon near El Paso, the Graf tumbled, plunged, tossed, rose and fell like a ship in a heavy sea.

“Fierce gusts shrieked, tore and clawed at the airship as it bucked into the strong headwinds and turbulent swirls for which this region is known. For the first time in many flights I have made I saw two or three passengers ‘near seasick’ but not quite. We have no racks on the tables, but at luncheon we had to watch that the porcelain did not slide off.”

Trish Long is the El Paso Times' librarian and spends her time in the morgue, where the newspaper keeps its old clippings and photos. She may be reached at 546-6179 or tlong@elpasotimes.com.

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