Albert Bond Lambert

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Major Albert Bond Lambert (December 6, 1875 - November 12, 1946) was a prominent St. Louis aviator and benefactor of aviation.

Lambert was a Police Commissioner of St. Louis and a local industrialist. In 1906 he became interested in aviation, and took ballooning lessons. In 1907 he was one of the founders of the Aero Club of St. Louis. (The Club used “military” titles; hence Lambert’s title “Major.”)

In 1909 Lambert met the Wright Brothers, and purchased his first airplane from them. He took flying lessons from Orville Wright, and in 1911 became the first St. Louis resident to hold a pilot’s license. During World War I he served in the Aviation Section of the United States Army Signal Corps, as an instructor in ballooning and parachuting.

In 1920, for $68,000, Lambert purchased Kinloch Field, a 550-acre field northwest of St. Louis, which had been used for hot air balloon ascensions. For the next seven years, Lambert, at his own expense, developed the field with runways and hangars. In 1927 Charles Lindbergh used Lambert Field (as it had been renamed) as the starting point for his famous flight to Paris. The following year, 1928, Lambert sold the field to the city of St. Louis for $68,000, the same price he’d paid for it before making improvements. Lambert-St. Louis International Airport thus became the first municipal airport in the United States.