The featured photo on this page is courtesy of the Pan American Historical Foundation. We urge you to visit their website for a trip back in time.
For unique information about the globe read The World According to Trippe.
May 27, 1934
The Miami News
Perhaps the most striking feature of the new Pan American Terminal Building is the vari-colored ten foot globe of the earth which revolves in the main lobby. The circumference of the big ball is 31 feet five inches.
Besides the detail of the physical aspects of the earth represented on the globe, it carries all the airlines of the world. The scale of the map is 1-64 of an inch to one mile. The total weight of the ball and its steel supporting ring is 6, 500 pounds. It is rotated once every two minutes by an electric motor.
The globe is oriented so that its axis parallels the actual axis under Miami. Its north pole points to the north star. In the course of its rotations Miami comes precisely to the top of the globe once every two minutes, giving the observer an opportunity to orient himself with reference to the rest of the world.
On this globe, the greatest ocean depth, 34,000 feet, would be shown as 1/10 of an inch below the surface.
The greatest height in the stratosphere reached by man, 62,000 feet, would be one fifth of an inch above the surface.
All the people in the world, packed in a box, could, on this scale, be contained in a case less than one-hundreth of an inch each way.
This globe, one of the two or three largest in America, was made for Pan American Airways by Rand, McNally & Company, Chicago.
Other News Articles About the Globe
Miami Science Museum Ponders Future of Iconic Pan Am Globe