Illustrated Map of the Route of Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc.

Description

The Lindbergh Line: America’s First Transcontinental Airline.

This is a 1929 Transcontinental Air Transport illustrated map of the United States, issued by Rand, McNally and Co. It shows the so-called “The Lindbergh Line” in honor of Charles Lindbergh, who personally planned its routes.

Published at the dawn of commercial aviation, when crossing the continent by air was an act of genuine adventure, it documents the early American airline industry. The present example retains its original Certificate of Flight with handwritten passenger entries, making it not merely a promotional map but a direct artifact of an actual TAT journey.

The Map in Detail

The main illustrated map presents the full continental United States in warm pictorial style, with the TAT air routes traced prominently across the landscape alongside roads, railroads, rivers, and topographic detail. A richly decorated border of vignette illustrations surrounds the map on all four sides, depicting aerial and ground-level views of the cities and landmarks along the route, including: San Francisco, Los Angeles, the desert Southwest, Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbus, and the eastern seaboard, as well as natural wonders including the Grand Canyon, mountain ranges, and river valleys.

An elevation profile along the bottom of the main sheet provides passengers with a graphic sense of the terrain they were crossing. The folded interior reveals a second, simpler route map printed by Rand McNally, showing the TAT network with a detailed legend distinguishing landing fields, weather observer stations, Pennsylvania Railroad and Santa Fe Railroad observers, TAT observers, telegraph lines, teletype routes, and railroads. Further panels include a Flight Log, a Weather Map section, and the Certificate of Flight, which here bears handwritten entries recording an actual TAT journey.

Historical Context

Transcontinental Air Transport was founded in 1928 with the backing of some of the most prominent figures in American finance and aviation, and began transcontinental service on July 7, 1929, just two years after Lindbergh’s solo Atlantic crossing electrified the world and made aviation suddenly seem possible. The journey was a marvel of logistical ingenuity: passengers departed New York by Pennsylvania Railroad overnight, boarded a Ford Trimotor in Columbus, Ohio, flew by day across the continent with stops at Waynoka, Oklahoma (where they reboarded the Santa Fe Railroad for another overnight leg), and arrived in Los Angeles approximately 48 hours after leaving New York, roughly half the time of an all-rail crossing. Flying at night was considered too dangerous, and the combination of air and rail was the pragmatic solution.

Despite the glamour and the genuine achievement, TAT lost money from the start; passenger numbers were thin, and the airline never turned a profit. In October 1930, it merged with Western Air Express to form Transcontinental & Western Air, better known to history as TWA. The entire operational life of TAT as an independent carrier thus spans barely 18 months, making any document from the period exceptionally rare.

Publication History and Census

This map was published by Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc. in 1929, with the inner route map copyrighted by Rand McNally & Company. Given TAT’s brief operational existence, July 1929 to October 1930, the window of production for this piece is extremely narrow. Passenger brochures and maps of this type were produced for distribution to travelers and were not intended for preservation; survival rates are correspondingly low, and complete examples retaining the Certificate of Flight are particularly scarce.