St. Louis has always been a city of innovation and industry, home to beer barons, industrialists and inventors.

It's a place where fortunes were made and empires rose and fell.

One such empire was built by a man named Jordan Lambert,

a Virginia man who came to St. Louis in 1873.

He was a chemist and a pharmacist by trade

and he patented aniseptic that he called Listerine.

It went on to become the backbone of the Lambert Farmical company and turned several generations

of the family into millionaires.

Ironically, Lambert died of an infection in 1889.

His wife, Lily, died of pneumonia six months later when their youngest son, John, was only six months old.

One of their sons, Albert Bond Lambert,

became an aviation pioneer and he financed Charles Lindbergh's flight to Paris.

He had been born in 1875 and took his first hot air balloon ride in 1908. He became obsessed with flying and became the first St Louisin to be licensed as an airplane pilot in 1911.

Eventually he helped create the St. Louis Municipal Airport, which was later named Lambert Field in his honor.

Another son, Gerard, continued the growth of the family company.

He also became president of Gillette.

He turned Listerine into a product that would be found in almost every home in the country.

The effect that the Lambert family had on American society cannot be underestimated.

Well, at least for the most part. You see not all

of them achieved aviation greatness or changed the lives of Americans for the better.

The oldest son, Jordan Wheat Lambert, was born in 1872 and like Billy Limp, served as the vice

president of his family's company while adding little to the actual running of the operation.

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