IN THE PIPELINE:

“I think Amelia Earhart eventually made it back to the United States after landing on that island and may have lived to be about 90 or so.”

So said one expert to me in Atchison, Kan., in front of the birthplace/museum house where “Lady Lindy” was born 111 years to the day we were speaking, July 24.

There are many theories about what happened to our country’s (if not the world’s) most famous missing pilot, and as we all gathered to help refurbish the house as part of the Hampton Inn Save-A-Landmark program, the speculations came fast and furious.

“She was a spy.”

“She was captured by the Japanese.”

“She didn’t crash — a body double did.”

More and more theories followed, carried along a cool breeze, which helped blunt the thick summer air on a pretty bluff overlooking the muddy Missouri River (which looks sort of like the chocolate river in the original “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory”). Earhart grew up here in the heartland; a stone’s throw away from one of Lewis and Clark’s many campgrounds. Who knows — maybe the sense of discovery and adventure was just in the air around here.

Sometimes, I think about Earhart when I drive near Huntington Beach. At the Mahe restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway in Seal Beach, there used to be a pilot’s logbook at the host’s podium at the front of the restaurant. This was a few years back, when the place was called The Glider Inn, in tribute to the many pilots who flew at a nearby strip.

Earhart had signed the log, as had Charles Lindbergh, because they had both flown right there. But Earhart’s flight roots run even deeper in our neck of the woods. After she moved to California in 1920 (joining her parents), they went to an “aerial meet” at Daugherty Field in Long Beach. She wrote of the experience, “The interest aroused in me in Toronto led me to all the air circuses in the vicinity.”

Earlier in life, she had become interested in flying, especially after living in Canada as a teenager.

She asked her father to find out about a flight and the cost of flying lessons, and her dad booked a flight for her the next day at Rogers Field, an open space on Wilshire Boulevard near Fairfax. The cost was $10 for a 10-minute flight with Frank Hawks (Hawks later became a high-speed flight-record breaker).

Soon after, Earhart heard of a female pilot who gave flying lessons. It was pioneer aviatrix Anita “Neta” Snook, and in short order, Earhart was taking lessons at Kinner Field near Long Beach. This field, located on the west side of Long Beach Boulevard and Tweedy Road (near South Gate), is where Earhart became a pilot.

But were it not for that experience at Daugherty Field, it’s easy to wonder if her future might have been different. That’s why I can never get her out of my head whenever I fly in or out of Long Beach Airport — because that used to be Daugherty Field — where Earhart became so inspired.

Back in Atchison, we see the room where Earhart was born, the room where she grew up and the actual receipt for the Lockheed L-10E Electra purchased in 1936 (for about $64,000). The large 1800s house is crammed with many other artifacts, and people come here from around the world to learn about the shy, elegant, courageous woman who disappeared in 1937 along with Fred Noonan, her navigator.

In fact, it’s the mystery that seems to captivate people the most, as illustrious as her flying career was.

The 99s, an organization of licensed women pilots dedicated to the support and advancement of aviation, own the Amelia Earhart birthplace museum (Earhart herself was a charter member of the group).

A handful of these terrific women are on hand for the festivities, and their theories vary widely on what really happened out there in that remote corner of the Pacific.

But here as we cut a birthday cake in honor of Earhart, they all agree she changed the world — that she affected their lives especially.

Whatever happened, it’s worth connecting the dots from the Missouri-Kansas border, on a Victorian street that looks like an antique postcard, back near Huntington Beach.

So next time you visit Long Beach Airport, perhaps pause for a moment to think about the day a young Amelia Earhart gazed up a the skies and saw her destiny off in the wild blue yonder — so close to our own community.

CHRIS EPTING is the author of 14 books, including the new “Huntington Beach Then & Now.” You can write him at [email protected].