The Mysterious and Strange End of Richard Halliburton

He was the most famous man of the early twentieth century. Or one of the most famous. He rivaled Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh in popularity. He traveled the word and wrote about it in best selling books. You might say he invented "adventure travel", by doing such things as diving into a cenotes or well in an ancient Mayan site and registering as a ship and swimming the Panama Canal. He at least created the new era of travel writing.

Yet, today, Richard Halliburton is forgotten. He has no airport named after him, no blockbuster movies that depict his life; not even an alley carries his name. He is the most forgotten most famous man of all time.

His mysterious end came at a time of darkening clouds between Japan and the United States. World War II was only two years from all out fighting between the two nations, and Halliburton disappeared at sea near imperial Japan.

Halliburton was born with the new century, on January 07, 1900, and he seemed destined to live up to the promises that were born out of the recent industrial revolution and rush of inventions that followed that opened the world to the masses.

He first experienced this promise or dream, for him, by shipping out on a freighter sailing for England. He ditched his classes at Princeton and went for what he thought was the ride of his life. However, the romanticism, which colored all his works in print, was a poor definition for the drudgery and coarseness that was the reality of life aboard a steamer.

Halliburton abandoned ship, figuratively. He went home, only to be scolded by his mother and told to return and finish his duty on the ship.

He did.

This time it wasn't so bad. He finished his term and then spent six months wandering in England and Europe.
Never wanting to settle into a common existence, Halliburton continued his travels, supporting himself first by going on the lecture circuit and talking about his adventures, which by that time, had included wanderings in Europe, India, Egypt and Asia. Though he didn't consider himself as a good public speaker, he was soon to become the most popular attraction on the lecture circuit. People were hungry to hear about the new world that was becoming more and more accessible, with the coming of age of the motor car and airplane.

Always the writer, Halliburton summarized his lectures in a book called "The Royal Road to Romance", published in 1926. It went on to become a best seller, with over 100,000 copies sold.

In the age of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, he was their rivals in book sales, but more importantly, a contender for actually living the dreams of possibilities. His many more books were to contain not only a catalog of his adventures, but also unbridled enthusiasm for whatever place his was exploring.

Like many in the Jazz Age, the music slowed and stopped with the Great Depression, which darkened peoples imaginations and made the idea of a traveling vagabond seem frivolous when the streets in America were lined with hungry and desperate out of work men.

Yet, people still wanted to dream. Kids wanted to dream, and parents, no matter how stressed by the horrors of the Depression, wanted their kids to dream. Halliburton successfully revived his career by publishing a series of children adventure books, called "Richard Halliburton's Book of Marvels". Its sales soared while taking children around the world to its wondrous sights as they sat in the comfort of their own bedrooms.

Halliburton's life was not without controversy. He was accused of being outlandish, and somewhat of a huckster, seeking publicity to satisfy his ego.

Maybe.

It is undeniable, though, that Richard Halliburton was one of the most popular men alive during the 1920s and 1930s if not the most popular. He sold millions of books, broadcast over radio, and was the guest of the rich and famous of the time.

His exuberance and his showmanship may have led to his death.

In 1939, Halliburton built and oversized Chinese junk and intended to sail it from Hong Kong to San Francisco. His plans were to arrive in the midst of The World's Fair of 1939. His motive was to prove that the Chinese could have well sailed the oceans and have trekked in the New World well before the Spanish and Columbus arrived.

Halliburton never made it. Within months of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, Halliburton was lost at sea, along with his crew. No trace was ever found of him.

There were conjectures at the time that Halliburton was on a mission for Franklin Roosevelt and, as is sometimes supposed of Earhart, was captured and met a horrible end at the hands of the Japanese.

Others claim his Chinese Junk was just about that, built badly and crewed worse.

Today, people still look for Earhart, with an expedition every few years uncovering some tantalizing type of clue, such as an old shoe or piece of aluminum.

Nobody looks for Halliburton.

Even in his home town of Memphis. Nobody cares.

Several years ago I visited Memphis. I had vaguely gone in mind with the idea of visiting the sites associated with Halliburton's youth. They were hard to find and not marked. Elvis was easy. BB King was easy, too. Halliburton, whose adventures captured a seminal time in America's history, when the chains of isolation were thrown off and ordinary citizens did extraordinary things around the world -- these things were forgotten.

Today, Halliburton's books have to be read in context to the time and place, as those with supercharged sensitivities will be apt to dismiss him as racist or uncaring.

I'll let Halliburton sum up his story, and you can be the judge as to whether his exploits and his strange disappearance deserve a closer look.

Says Halliburton, now from over the lost decades and perhaps from a watery grave, from the memory of his readings in a youthful geography book: "...that once upon a time in a the far-off days of my youth I had told myself a story, and behold -- it had come true" From "New Worlds to Conquer", 1929, Richard Halliburton.

Where is Richard Halliburton, and what happened to him so long ago?

Do you know?