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When a blond young man, silent and tall, brought his smoking motorcycle
to rest in front of E. J. Sias’s airplane and flying school at 2415 O,
on April fool’s day, 1922, he probably had no idea, and certainly
Lincoln had no idea, that what he learned at the flying school would one
day catapult him into fame. Unnoticed Charles Lindbergh traversed the
streets of Lincoln, quiet and untalkative.
After his spectacular air voyage of May 20-21, 1927—spectacular and yet
on his part made as quietly as his entrance into Lincoln five years
before, the flying school suddenly became a mecca. Young men were
siphoned out of Australia, Scotland, China, New Guinea and dumped at the
door of the school—young men talking in divers tongues but speaking the
same language aeronautically. Since the war started men in uniform have
almost cracked the walls of the aeronautical institute.
The name of E. J. Sias is synonymous now with the words flying school.
But 30 years ago he was the energetic young minister who plucked
Tabernacle Christian church out of a cocked hat before the startled eyes
of south Lincoln. One day, June 21, 1912, he and a group in his home
thought up a Christian church in that part of the city. Two days later
they met and planned a building and 60 men volunteered to put up a
structure between morning light and evening dark. The heat of late June
prevented quite this much of a miracle, but anyway, on June 30, nine
days after the initial meeting, the tabernacle was ready for occupancy.
Rather, it was occupied—by 800 people listening to the dedicatory
sermon. This building sufficed its congregation ten years. By that time
Mr. Sias was deep in something else—flying.