Raymond Orteig

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Raymond Orteig (1870 - 1939) was the New York City hotel owner who offered the Orteig Prize for the first non-stop transatlantic flight between New York and Paris.

Orteig was born in the south of France, in Louvie-Juzon, Bearn, but moved to New York on August 24, 1912. He started working as a bus boy and cafe manager but soon managed to acquire two hotels (the Hotel Lafayette and the Brevoort Hotel in Greenwich Village).

Orteig offered the prize in 1919 after attending a dinner honouring the American ace Eddie Rickenbacher. Many of the speeches involved Franco-American friendship and Rickenbacher had looked forward to the day that the two countries were linked by air. He was also strongly inspired by contact with French pilots, members of a French mission sent during World War I, in 1917-18, to New York to help the USA build the US Air Force.

The prize was won in 1927 by Charles Lindbergh.