Amelia Earhart is well known as a pioneering aviatrix whose record-breaking flights in the 1920s and ‘30s earned her global fame. Earhart had many residences during her life, but she was actually connected in several ways to Southern California.
Earhart grew up in the Midwestern United States. In 1920, as a young adult, she moved to Los Angeles to live with her parents. That December, her attendance at an airshow at what is now Long Beach Airport piqued her interest in aviation. Soon after, she boarded an airplane (as a passenger) for the first time at Rogers Field in today’s Miracle Mile. Though only a brief experience, it inspired her to pursue a pilot’s license.
“Then it was simply an open space on Wilshire Boulevard, surrounded by oil wells,” Earhart wrote in her 1932 autobiography “The Fun of It.” “As soon as we left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly. Miles away I saw the ocean and the Hollywood hills seemed to peep over the edge of the cockpit, as if they were already friends.”
Earhart left California in the mid-1920s and pursued her work elsewhere. In May 1932, after her marriage to George Putnam, she completed a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, departing from eastern Canada and safely landing in Europe.
She earned international fame as the first woman to accomplish this feat. Amid a jubilant reception in Europe, the Los Angeles Times praised her enthusiastically:
“Her fellow-countrymen…rejoice today in the splendid type of American womanhood of which she is an outstanding example. Her dauntless courage and her consummate skill in overcoming the unusual difficulties she had to face in her grueling flight have confirmed the faith all aviators who know her have always held since she took her first flying lesson in Los Angeles. Amelia Earhart Putnam stands before the world as the undisputed Queen of the Air.”
In January 1935, Earhart completed a similar journey from Hawaii to the continental U.S., becoming the first person of any gender to do so. Landing in Oakland after over 18 hours, she was met by a crowd of 10,000.
As the Los Angeles Times reported, “The crowd was so amazed, it was silent until she slid from her seat in the cockpit; then the cheers rolled forth,” adding that when “the flyer’s smiling face” appeared, “the response for her admirers was virtually deafening.”
Earhart then flew solo from Los Angeles to Mexico City, once again the first.
Shortly after her Pacific crossing, Earhart and her husband purchased a house on Valley Spring Lane in the Toluca Lake area, only a few miles from North Hollywood High School.
They began expanding the house in 1936, and would perhaps have resided there for many years. However, Earhart’s career was cut short by her disappearance over the Pacific Ocean in July 1937 while attempting a journey around the world.
North Hollywood community did not forget their connection to the legendary figure.
In 1971, a statue of Earhart was placed at the corner of Tujunga Ave. and Magnolia Blvd. As recently as 2024, community members restored and rededicated the statue after it was damaged by a car. In 1981, the neighboring North Hollywood Los Angeles Public Library branch was renamed in her honor. Our own Amelia Earhart Continuation High School opened in 1973 in the corner of the NHHS campus.
Amelia Earhart’s exploits and accolades are far too numerous to include here in full. And though she left Los Angeles nearly nine decades ago, the memory of her brilliance endures.
