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Eureka » Amelia Earhart slept here.
And the fourth-graders in Nancy Underwood's class in central Utah's one-time gold and silver boomtown think that's pretty cool.
The legend of the "aviatrix" who disappeared over the Pacific in 1937 lives on, nowhere more than in Eureka. A new feature film with Hillary Swank to open Friday will be the next chapter in the lore of the biggest female celebrity of the Great Depression era.
Earhart was daring and pretty, and challenged stereotypes. She chopped her hair short, sported flight pants and on the eve of her wedding, according to a New Yorker profile, confided to her future husband, publishing magnate George Palmer
Her daring-do lifestyle and the mystery of her disappearance still fan the American imagination.
But her crash landing on Sept. 30, 1928, in a Juab County farm field several miles west of Eureka was all but forgotten until Springville resident and history buff John Schmitt dug out old copies of The Salt Lake Tribune .
A banner front-page headline on Oct. 1, 1928, screams, " 'Lady Lindy,' Famous Woman Flier, Forced to Land Near Tintic."
The reference is to Tintic Junction near the Union Pacific rails the aviator was tracing from Los Angeles to Salt Lake City, with more stops planned to the east. A kicker headline reads, "Escapes Injury: Miss Amelia Earhart, woman flier who crossed ocean, makes forced landing in Utah."
Her unexpected stopover in Eureka came on the heels of her June 3, 1928 trans-Atlantic flight. She was a passenger -but nonetheless heralded as the first woman to fly across the ocean. The "aviatrix" was an instant heroine and celebrity.
Schmitt, who had unearthed the newspaper clips as part of his Tintic mining district history research, recently mailed them and other accounts to Eureka Elementary School.
"I felt very surprised when we found out about Amelia Earhart," said fourth-grader Cheyenne Holden. "It was actually very exciting."
Dylan Morrison added, "We want people to know this town is famous."
According to the Oct. 1, 1928 Tribune, story, Earhart had to ditch her plane when it lost power over Utah's remote Juab County. The single-engine plane's propeller was smashed during the forced landing.
"The visit was occasioned when the motor of her small Avra Avian folding wing biplane failed to function in the high altitude," reads the newspaper clipping. "Miss Earhart, as she herself explained, with a little laugh, to The Tribune over long distance, 'I just simply had to come down quickly.' "
Eureka fourth-grader Curtis Evans imagined what it was like when Amelia Earhart arrived in bustling downtown Eureka back when the area boasted 7,000 residents -- 10 times what it is today.
"She was cool, and she crash-landed," Evans said. "The people were probably surprised that she landed here and they could see her and meet her."
Curtis rushed home to inform his mother, Paula Evans, who teaches English at Eureka High School. But his mother doubted the Earhart crash story, Curtis recalled.
"I told my mom. But she said, 'No, no, you must be confused.' "
But Curtis had the proof --- the newspaper clips --- and now he's the family's Amelia Earhart expert.
According to those news accounts, Earhart spent three days in Juab County before taking the train to Utah's capital, where she was the toast of the town for a week while awaiting a new propeller.
"Flier Enjoys Forced Stay," reads the headline in the Oct. 5, 1928 Tribune. "Amelia Earhart Kept Busy in Salt Lake; Charmed, She Would Linger."
Recent magazine pieces, an unending series of books and the latest of three Hollywood Earhart movies, however, are beginning to reveal a woman who had more human foibles than the icon painted by her husband and his publishing machine.
She hobknobbed with elites, at one point had her own clothing line and was known to get around.
According to the September New Yorker , feminists embraced the aviator in the '70s as a role model. But, writer Judith Thurman noted, "Earhart's life is, in part, the story of a charismatic dilettante who lectured college girls about ambition yet never bothered to earn a degree."
Abby Tervort is developing her own picture of the icon.
"I went home and looked her up on the Internet," the Eureka fourth-grader said. "It said she liked guns and liked to shoot rats."
Another little-known fact is that the aviator feared old age -- perhaps even more than rats -- and had shaved a couple of years off her age. She disappeared three weeks short of her 40th birthday.
What happened that day 72 years ago over the tiny atoll of Howland Island where she and navigator Fred Noonan had planned to refuel remains a mystery.
Did the twin-engine Lockheed Electra plunge into shark-infested waters?
Did Earhart set the craft down on another island, where she and Noonan eventually died?
Or did the Japanese find her? Take her for a spy? And imprison her on Saipan?
Underwood's students can't believe she crashed into the ocean and died that fateful day in 1937.
"I think she landed on a different island," offered Curtis Evans. "Maybe she lived for a while but died because there was no food or water."
In any event, Earhart's legend lives on as an example for girls --and boys -- dreaming of going for it.
"Me and my brother, we think about doing cool things, too," said fourth-grader Clarrissa Carlson. "When I was younger, I was going be an astronaut."
January 1921 » Began aviation training in Los Angeles at the age of 23.
July 3, 1928 » First woman (passenger) to fly across the Atlantic.
Sept. 30, 1928 » Crash-landed near Eureka.
July 1930 » Set women's aviation speed record, 181.18 mph.
Feb. 7, 1931 » Married publishing magnate George Palmer Putnam.
May 20, 1932 » First woman pilot to fly alone across the Atlantic.
January, 1935 » First pilot -- male or female -- to fly from Hawaii to Oakland, Ca.
June 1, 1937 » Took off from Oakland with navigator Fred Noonan to circle the globe.
July 2, 1937 » Disappeared near Howland Island in the South Pacific.
Sources » Kansas State Historical Society and Purdue University archives.
