The History of Jimmie Angel

Jimmie Angel was born in the Cedar Valley area of the mid western state of Missouri on 1 August 1899. His full name was James Crawford Angel. To avoid confusion in the Angel family, he used the name Crawford in his childhood and teenage years because his grandfather was named James Edward Angel.  He started using the name Jimmie with its unconventional spelling in his early twenties. 

Although a United States citizen, he spent much of his fifty-seven years of life outside of the United States.  He lived for adventure and the love of flying. 

There are many unsubstantiated stories or legends about Jimmie Angel that have been reported in the books and articles of writers and journalists. That Jimmie taught himself to fly at age fourteen, or younger, is part of the legend. The stories that he was a  Royal British Flying Corps Ace in World War I, created an air force for a Chinese Warlord in the Gobi Desert, or worked as an aviation scout for Lawrence Arabia  have not been verified. What is true is that Jimmie Angel was a gifted pilot and loved Central and South America, especially Venezuela.

Jimmie Angel’s parents Glenn Davis Angel and Margaret Belle Marshall Angel with three of his younger brothers – Henry Parker on the left, William Edward “Eddie” center, and baby Clifford Esby on the right - Jimmie standing on the right was about eight years old.
© Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
Jimmie Angel’s parents Glenn Davis Angel and Margaret Belle Marshall Angel with three of his younger brothers – Henry Parker on the left, William Edward “Eddie” center, and baby Clifford Esby on the right – Jimmie standing on the right was about eight years old.

Following World War I, he was a civilian pilot in the United States working as a barnstormer, test pilot, movie stunt pilot, and flight instructor. He considered the life of a commercial airline pilot too routine, too structured.  “It would be like driving a bus.” he responded to his youngest son Rolan when asked late in his life why he didn’t have an airline pilot’s job.

He first flew south of the United States’ border in the 1920s where his pilot skills found him employment in the remote and unexplored regions of Mexico, Central and South America.  Working throughout the 1930s and 1940s for natural resource companies – gold, diamond, and oil – and with scientific and government expeditions, Jimmie Angel found the freedom and excitement that he craved.

Some of his work, particularly in Venezuela, has had a lasting impact.  His explorations of the Gran Sabana of southeastern Venezuela from 1933 through 1942 developed international interest in the region and led to scientific exploration by the American Museum of Natural History of Auyántepui in 1938. The vast Gran Sabana was explored, mapped, and opened to systematic scientific evaluation, in part, due to Angel’s work for the Venezuelan Ministry of Development and the Venezuelan-Brazil Boundary Commission in 1939.

As a consequence of international interest and scientific exploration of the region, Venezuela’s vast Canaima National Park has been preserved and saved from the deprecations that have destroyed many other forests and savannas in South America.

According to legend, Angel’s first trip to Venezuela was in the early 1920s with an American mining geologist known as McCracken. The two met in a bar in Panama and had agreed that McCracken would pay Jimmie $5,000 to fly him to a location in southeastern Venezuela. They landed on a mysterious Gran Sabana tepui and removed many pounds of gold from a river on the plateau. McCracken later died in the United States and Angel spent the balance of his life looking for the lost river of gold. 

Glenn Davis and Margaret Belle Angel with their five sons: child Clyde Marshall in sailor suit, William Edward, Henry Parker, Jimmie Crawford in uniform, and Clifford Esby Angel the day of their sister Goldie Etoile’s funeral in May 1921.
© Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
(L to R) Glenn Davis and Margaret Belle Angel with their five sons: child Clyde Marshall in sailor suit, William Edward, Henry Parker, Jimmie Crawford in uniform, and Clifford Esby Angel the day of their sister Goldie Etoile’s funeral in May 1921.
jimmie angle in flight attire
© Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
Jimmie Angel at age 22 in 1921.
1927 ANGEL FAMILY
© Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
Jimmie Angel, center in dark jacket, with his parents and four brother rebuilding a Fokker D VII airplane at their Compton, California home in 1927.

Documents or informants have not verified the legend of the River of Gold.  The first person account by Jimmie Angel cannot be verified.   Certainly Angel told the story frequently.  Many of his friends and family members believed the story. Whether it actually happened is unknown.  We do know that the story was a successful means of attracting investors to his search for gold.  It was a quest that lasted for the balance of his life.

Jimmie Angel was obsessed with Auyántepui; a 348 square mile heart-shaped tepui not shown on the official maps of the region prior to his explorations. He believed that it was the home of the lost river of gold.

Perhaps plants, animals, and geological features are never discovered. Instead, the knowledge of their existence gains recognition from a larger, more diverse audience. It is highly likely that the existence of the waterfall, known to the world as Angel Falls, was known to the indigenous Kamarakotos living in Kamarata Valley, next to Auyántepui, before outsiders discovered it. The Kamarakotos are one of three indigenous tribes known as the Pemón – the other two being the Taurepanes and the Arekunas.

When the Pemón worked with Ruth Robertson’s 1949 Expedition to measure the height of Angel Falls, a few refused to enter the Churún Canyon because they feared the spirits that lived there. The Pemón who did enter the canyon wore red paint on their faces to hide them and keep them safe from the spirits. At their insistence, Robertson did too.

Tall waterfalls had been reported in the journals of several early non-indigenous explorers, but recent scholarship has in large measure debunked the suggestions that the waterfall was first seen by other explorers including Sir Walter Raleigh, Ernesto Sanchez-La Cruz, and Captain Felix Cardona. It came down to Jimmie Angel being the first “outsider” to see the waterfall and accurately place it on maps and report it to the world.

people standing by plane
©Carlos A. Freeman Archive/Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
Members of the Venezuelan Ministry of Development Gran Sabana 1939 Expedition. Jimmie Angel is seated on the left, his wife Marie Angel is next to him, Carlos A Freeman is standing on the left in the back row in front of Angel’s Hamilton airplane.

Jimmie Angel sustained a head injury from loose cargo while landing his airplane 17 April 1956 in David, Panama. Soon after the landing, he suffered a heart attack. He had various health problems for the next eight months. He was admitted to Gorgas Hospital, Canal Zone, for the treatment of pneumonia where he died 8 December 1956 from a cerebral hemorrhage. His cremated remains were initially entombed 15 December 1957 in the aviation memorial Portal of Folded Wings in Burbank-North Hollywood, California. In fulfillment of his stated wish, his ashes were removed from the Portal and scattered over Angel Falls 2 July 1960 by his wife Marie Angel, his sons Jimmy and Rolan, and his friends including Gustavo Heny and Patricia Grant.

JIMMIE ANGEL
© Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
James “Jimmie” Crawford Angel, 1941.
PLAQUE IN CANIMA NATIONAL PARK
© Karen Angel/Jimmie Angel Historical Project Archive
James “Jimmie Angel memorial plaque in Canaima National Park.

Notes

Unless quoting from another source or authoring a paper in an historical context, the JAHP attempts to consistently use Auyántepui when writing in English and Auyántepuy when writing in Spanish.

Tepui or Tepuy: According to the Royal Academy of Spanish Language (Real Academia de la Lengua Espanola) the correct Spanish spelling is tepuy, in plural, tepuyes. In English the spelling should be tepui; the plural is tepuis. Tepui is the correct form to write the Pemón word “tepú” when it is used on compound words in possessive case, i.e., Ptari-tepui, Auyán-tepui, Wei-tepui.