Jim Davidson’s Lindbergh presentation is this Thursday, September 26, 2024: “Hopewell was like a Roman Circus: Hopewell, the Sourlands and the Lindbergh Kidnapping.”
Attend in person at the Hopewell Presbyterian Church, or join the online virtual presentation via Zoom. The event starts at ## 8 pm ## (doors open at 7:30 pm).
Click for more information and Zoom registration.
We also will have examples of images from the time on display at the event.
The Lindbergh kidnapping in March 1932 had a interesting side effect for Hopewell – It bought a mad rush of reporters to town, with ten different newspapers moving in to local residences and installing dedicated phone lines. Then, in the absence of news on the kidnapping, the reporters turned to the local Hopewell scene – generating stories and photos and maps and aerials and newsreels that now provide us with helpful historical perspectives of the time.
Lindbergh Reporters in Hopewell
Gebhart’s Hotel “Times Square” [JCD]
Iconic image of the crush of humanity around what was later called the Hopewell Inn at East Broad and Seminary – as onlookers and film cameras watched the reporters who were working in the front room of the building.
Reporters at Hopewell Train Station [JH]
Reporters at work at a table in the Hopewell Train Station, where additional telegraph and telephone lines were installed after the Lindbergh kidnapping.
Lindbergh Route Aerial [JCD]
Aerial of Hopewell Boro annotated with the route from the Lindbergh home to the location where the baby was found near Mt. Rose.
View facing north from Mt. Rose, past Hopewell Boro into Hunterdon and the Lindbergh home.
Lindbergh Home Kidnapping Map [DHS]
Map from the area around the Lindbergh home, down to Hopewell Boro, and then to Princeton and Trenton and beyond on the horizon. Note the farm used as an airport to the east of Hopewell.
Downtown Hopewell Boro Aerial [SC2]
Aerial of downtown east Hopewell in 1932 at the time of the Lindbergh kidnapping:
– East Broad St. is across the bottom, from the Old School Baptist Church graveyard down past Greenwood Ave., the Hopewell Inn, and the Museum to Hamilton Ave.
– The railroad tracks are across the top, along Model Ave. (with the old Grammar School) past the Railroad bridge at Greenwood, and down Railroad Place past the train station to Hamilton Ave.
== Explore the 1932 Lindbergh aerials in the Panorama Viewer ==
Thanks especially to Jim Davidson, Jean Harrington, Dick Sudlow, and Sam Castoro for sharing these Lindbergh images.
Please contact us if you have Hopewell area photos, maps, documents, or other materials from the Lindbergh kidnapping that we can share.
More on Lindbergh and Hopewell
The press frenzy following the Lindbergh kidnapping in March 1932 brought an horde of some 250 news people to Hopewell Borough, filling rooms and swamping local services. To fill the desperate need for information to report, they also kindly created news stories and photos that help record the history of the time.
- Our Fascination with Lindbergh – The media circus almost 90 years ago
- 1932 (Lindbergh) Hopewell Phone Directory – Including 10 out-of-town newspapers that had installed dedicated numbers
- 1932 Lindbergh Hopewell Scenes – Photos, maps, aerials
- Hopewell Images During the Lindbergh Kidnapping (1932) – Jim Davidson photos around the area
- Hopewell Boro Aerials from 1932 – Aerial views of Hopewell Borough
- Inside the Hopewell Inn – 1932 – Photos around and inside Gebhart’s Hotel
