Lindbergh: Bigger than his Building

Ramona, California

A giant full-color Charles Lindbergh -- painted on flat panels -- wears a bulky 1920s flight suit and holds a tiny toy-like Spirit of St. Louis. He's 40 feet tall, so big that his head sticks above the outer wall of the building that he's attached to.

Lindbergh is also painted with a big smile, something that he rarely did in public (He hated all of the attention that he had to endure).

The towering mural, by artists by John and Jeanne Whalen, was installed in 1997 on a wall of the commuter terminal at San Diego's Lindbergh International Airport. Titled "Lucky Spirit" (Lindbergh also hated being called "Lucky") it was removed in 2013 due to Lindbergh's coziness with Hitler, support for human eugenics, and scandalous personal life (While married, he fathered seven secret children with women he met in Germany). The artists bought it back from the airport and sold it to a group from Ramona, who put it up here in 2016.

San Diego was where the Spirit of St. Louis was designed and built in 1927. Ramona has no direct connection to the famous flier, but its community leaders said that it's one of the few towns in San Diego County with its own airport.

Lindbergh is bolted to the outside of the town's Masonic Lodge because he was a Mason and because it's the tallest wall on Main Street -- although not quite as tall as Lucky Lindy.