Charles Lindbergh, center, helped dedicate greater Des Moines’ second airfield in 1927.
Des Moines was already a leader in air travel when Charles Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis airplane here in 1927, three months after his historic solo flight across the Atlantic.
Two years earlier on July 1, 1925 — a century ago — Des Moines was a stop on one of the earliest transcontinental airmail routes. Temperatures hit 104 degrees that day, and they were still in the sticky 90s when an evening crowd of more than 40,000 gathered at the city’s first airfield, a pasture just beyond the city limits off Vandalia Road at Southeast 30th Street…