That Time When Amelia Earhart Hung Out In Utica

On this day almost a century ago, Amelia Earhart made an unexpected stop in Utica and even had dinner at the Fort Schuyler Club! Here's the (abridged) story...

She was on her way to Buffalo from NYC when she encountered thunderstorms and was forced to put down (in a plane like the replica above) in a cornfield in Deerfield near Trenton Road. Here's a quote from the aviatrix herself about the encountering the storm:

"I got as far as that hospital [the now torn down Broadacres Hospital] and then decided to turn around and seek a good place to land, and it happened to be a corn field"

While workers extricated her plane from the mud and towed it to the now defunct Utica Airport in Marcy, Amelia decided to surprise her sister who was a teacher in at the Utica Country Day School for girls (now the Wedgewood Apartments on Genesee St. across from Utica Mutual) with an improptu visit. They ended up having dinner at the Fort Schuyler Club that night (where Amelia had the lamb chops) and she departed the next day. Read more about what happened surrounding this event in 1929 below: