On this day in 1931 Amelia Earhart, on a promotional tour for Beech-Nut chewing gum, landed her autogiro on the dirt field at Charlotte’s privately owned airport.
During her three-day stopover she demonstrated the experimental “flying windmill,” attended a United Relief Drive luncheon, made a sidetrip to Fayetteville for Armistice Day ceremonies and endeared herself to Charlotte officials by endorsing their plan to buy the airport: “A few years’ time will prove it necessary, unless a city wants to suffer the fate some towns brought upon themselves in years gone by when they refused to permit railroads. . . . ”
Charlotte Municipal Airport, paid for by a bond referendum and a WPA grant, opened in 1937.
Here’s a link to a postcard of the Charlotte Municipal Airport about two years after it opened. It was published for the 1939 New York World’s Fair…
http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/nc_post&CISOPTR=3797&CISOBOX=1&REC=7
She visited Pinehurst a few times, too. See the article in The Pilot about one of those visits: http://www.thepilot.com/stories/20091023/news/local/20091023Amelia.html
And that would be The Pilot as the local newspaper, not The Pilot as a periodical associated with the airline industry.