Lincoln Ellsworth: Gold Character

The real history

Lincoln Ellsworth was born in Chicago in 1880. His father, James Ellsworth, was a wealthy coal businessman, and his money helped pay for many of his son's expeditions.

Ellsworth first became known for his work in the Arctic with the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. In 1925 he served on Amundsen's attempt to fly toward the North Pole, which failed. The next year, in 1926, they tried again aboard the airship Norge. The flight took them from Spitsbergen to Teller, Alaska, and along the way they dropped the flags of Italy, Norway and the United States over the North Pole.

Ellsworth then turned to Antarctica. His early attempts to fly across the continent in 1934 did not succeed. In late 1935 he tried again with the Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon in a Northrop Gamma airplane named the Polar Star. They took off from Dundee Island in the Weddell Sea on November 23, 1935, aiming for the abandoned Little America camp that Richard Byrd had used on the Ross Ice Shelf.

Running out of fuel, they had to land about 25 miles short, and they walked for six days to reach the camp. The flight is regarded as the first to cross the width of the Antarctic continent. Ellsworth claimed land there for the United States, and Congress voted him a special gold medal. In 1936 he gave the Polar Star to the Smithsonian. He died on May 26, 1951.

Sources

1. Northrop Gamma Polar Star, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
2. Lincoln Ellsworth (1880-1951), biographical note, Dartmouth Libraries, Rauner Special Collections
3. Aviation Pioneers, National Park Service

Checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Spot a mistake? Report an error. How we check facts.