Lincoln Ellsworth

Engineer, aviator and explorer Lincoln Ellsworth was born into a prominent Chicago family--his father was responsible for building one of the earliest skyscrapers in Chicago, the Ellsworth Building--and grew up in a wealthy and privileged environment (the family home had its own art gallery). His mother died when he was just eight years old. His father's widespread business interests kept him away from home much of the time, and Lincoln and his sister saw very little of him growing up, especially after his mother's death. Ellsworth was educated at Yale University and Columbia University. In 1902 he was part of the survey party that helped lay out the route for the Canadian Pacific transcontinental railroad. He became a prospector and spent several years prospecting on Canada's Peace River. He also worked as an engineer for various railroad and mining companies, and was a member of a US government surveying expedition to the Rocky Mountains. He served in World War I as an aviator, and after the war he led a Johns Hopkins University expedition to South America. In 1925 he joined a six-man, two-aircraft expedition headed by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen in an attempt to fly from Spitsbergen, Norway, to the North Pole. The party was forced to land short of its goal due to its radio failing, and one of the planes was damaged beyond repair; because they could not communicate with their home base, they were given up for dead. They worked for a month to clear a strip long enough for the remaining plane to take off from, and they eventually returned to Spitsbergen. In 1926 Ellsworth and Amundsen flew the dirigible Norge 3400 miles to make the first crossing of the polar basin, from Spitsbergen to Alaska. In 1931 Ellsworth was the director of scientific investigation for a submarine expedition led by Sir Hubert Wilkins to the Arctic, and that same year he represented the National Geographic Society on the flight of the dirigible Graf Zeppelin over Franz Josef Land and Navaya Zenlya in the Arctic. In 1933 he attempted to fly across the continent of Antarctica from from Dundee Island in the Waddell Sea to the Bay of Whales in the Ross Sea. His first two attempts failed, but his third attempt in 1935 was successful. He claimed the huge territory he overflew for the United States, and named it James Ellsworth Land in honor of his father. This feat made him the first man to fly across both the Arctic and the Antarctic, and he was awarded a special medal by the US Congress. In 1939 he returned to Antarctica and flew over a vast area he named the American Highland, resulting in a total of over 380,000 square miles of Antarctica Ellsworth claimed for the US. In 1941 he led an archaeological expedition to Peru to find the legendary lost tombs of the Inca empire. He wrote several books about his archaeological and exploratory accomplishments. He died in New York City in 1951.