Lindbergh Landing/Renner Field

Col. Charles A. Lindbergh was the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. The 33½ hour solo flight on May 20-21, 1927, in a single engine monoplane, was a phenomenal aeronautical achievement which fascinated the world. Lindbergh’s aircraft, the ‘Spirit of St. Louis’, was flown without a radio and only minimal navigational equipment, but with courage and skill.

The Guggenheim Fund and the U.S. Department of Commerce sponsored Lindbergh in a nationwide air tour to stimulate interest in commercial aviation and to demonstrate the safety and punctuality of professional flying. On August 27, 1927, Lindbergh took off from Fargo, ND, for Sioux Falls. En route, he dropped fly-over messages when circling Aberdeen, Redfield, Huron and Mitchell.

He landed here at Renner Field precisely at 12:00 o’clock noon as scheduled. The cheers of over 30,000 persons ‘mounted into a steady roar’ as the sleek, silvery plane landed and taxied to a stop. Col. Lindbergh concluded a brief address by expressing his hope ‘that this little field or one that may be better situated, will be developed into a first class airport for your city.

’ The expressed hope was fulfilled four months later by the founding of Dakota Airlines at this site on December 27, 1927. In the mid-1920s a prominent Sioux Falls aviator and former U.S. Army pilot, Harold W. Tennant, began providing flight instruction and air taxi service on a 118 acre field, owned by George Renner, one-quarter mile southwest of here.

The first full-scale flight facility for Sioux Falls, Dakota Airlines, was established here on December 27, 1927. Nellie Wilhite, South Dakota’s first licensed aviatrix, received flight instruction and soloed at this field. While test-flying a new Kari-Keen monoplain, Tennant and a companion died in a tragic crash nearby on September 8, 1928.

Dakota Airlines was dissolved February 2, 1931, when Renner Air Service was established. By then the airport included two large hangars, which faced west parallel to the railroad tracks, a small hangar with an office at the north entrance, a Standard Oil gasoline pump with a 1,000 gallon tank, a prominent wind sock and designated landing areas maintained for year-round flying.

Several open cockpit biplanes were used for flight instruction and a five-passenger Ryan monoplane provided transport service. Air shows and airplane races were staged periodically at the field. Flight operations were discontinued here in January of 1935. Dedicated by the Minnehaha County and South Dakota State Historical Societies and Mapleton Township.