Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021
On the corner of Lewis and Second Street, a building was built in 1893. The building was the post office in Shakopee. In 1920, it opened as The People’s Bank. One of the directors was C.A. Lindbergh, the father of Charles A. Lindbergh.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, nicknamed “Lucky Lindy,” was an American aviator, inventor, explorer, and social activist. As a 25-year-old U.S. Air Mail pilot, Lindbergh emerged suddenly from virtual obscurity to instantaneous world fame because of his solo non-stop flight from New York to Paris, France in the single-seat, single-engine Spirit of St. Louis.
Charles borrowed $900 from the People’s National Bank of Shakopee to buy his first large airplane. He used it to get started for himself, according to Julius A. Coller, II in the book The Shakopee Story, p. 302.
However, flying hadn’t proved very profitable, and Charles had only paid back $50 on the note at the time when he made the record-breaking flight! A few years later, Joseph J. Moriarty went to St. Louis and got the money back from the bankers on this transatlantic flight, according to an article in the Shakopee Argus Tribune called “Lindy Pays Back Borrowed Money.”
Four years before his transatlantic journey, Charles Lindbergh took his first solo flight. Charles, like Speed Holman, was a barnstormer. He thrilled fairgoers by landing on farms, giving many people their first up-close look at an airplane, and a chance for an airplane ride.
In the summer of 1923, Charles flew to southeast Minnesota to visit his father in Shakopee. As the 21-year-old Lindbergh approached his landing site, he encountered a thunderstorm so severe he was unable to descend. As he flew around, his engine suddenly gave out causing him to land in a swampy area near the Minnesota River, not too far from Shakopee, according to Nancy Huddleston in Images of America Series: Savage, MN, 2012. As his plane touched the ground, the nose dipped into the dirt causing the propeller to crack. Bruce L. Larson, in an article in Minnesota History called “Barnstorming with Lindbergh,” Charles hung upside-down by his safety belt. By the time Charles had climbed out of the ruined airplane while people gathered to witness the wreckage. For three days Lindbergh stayed at the Savage Depot while he waited for his broken propeller to arrive and repairs to be made, according to an online article called “Lucky Lindy Charles Lindbergh crashes in Savage.” On Feb. 22, 2020, the old People’s Bank on the corner of Lewis and Second Street became the Historic Custom Shoppe, next door to Bill’s Toggery. The bank’s vault, which still exists, was converted into a dressing room. A mural, depicting Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight from New York to Paris in the Spirit of St. Louis was painted in the bank vault! The mural reminds Shakopee of The People’s Bank, and the time that Charles Lindbergh borrowed $900 to buy his first airplane!