Editor’s note:Main Street Nashville reprints some of the best front pages from the Nashville Banner, an afternoon newspaper that published from 1876 to 1998. The pages are courtesy of the Nashville Public Library, Nashville Banner Collection.
75 YEARS AGO IN THE
NASHVILLE BANNER
Publisher James G. Stahlman’s potentially record-breaking round-the-world jaunt led the front page of the June 30, 1947, Banner.
Stahlman, who had been publisher of the Banner since 1930, and David S. Ingalls of Pan American World Airways were believed to have set a record for fastest global passenger flight. Their time was 12 days, 16 hours and 52 minutes, although there was no official clocking.
Stahlman and Ingalls had been aboard the Pan American Constellation plane America with other publishers and editors, who made the global trip as guests of the airline. After the group arrived in San Francisco, Stahlman and Ingalls took a B-23 to New York while the rest of the party stopped in Chicago.
It was believed that Stahlman had also set a record for traveling the longest distance in the shortest time. Officials at the New York office of Pan American computed the distance at 22,170 miles. His time in the air was calculated at 96 hours. His trip included stops to meet with world leaders and Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Tokyo.
According to his 1976 obituary in The New York Times, Stahlman participated in all the pioneer flights of Pan Am, beginning with the opening of service to South Africa in 1934.
