Erwin Kreuz

Frederic Wessinger, the president of Blitz-Weinhard Brewing Company, presented Kreuz with a case of beer; Wessinger's great-grandfather, founder of the brewery, also had intended to travel from Germany to San Francisco in the 1850s, but ended up in Oregon instead.

Erwin Kreuz (1927 – 2010) was a West German tourist to the United States who achieved international celebrity status in the late 1970s for mistaking the city of Bangor, Maine for San Francisco.

The incident continues to be told in various media as a prominent example of an airline traveler not reaching their intended destination.

Kreuz left East Germany as a young soldier in 1945 and settled in Bavaria.

Kreuz's 50th birthday was celebrated by gala parties held in the McDonald's and Black Rose restaurants.

A growing circle of local 'friends' organized sight-seeing trips for him around the region, accompanied everywhere by local press.

Kreuz was by all reports impressed, grateful, and charming.

He also received three marriage invitations, and a couple in the northern Maine town of St. Francis gave him an acre of land.

Kreuz's vacation leave was scheduled to end on October 31.

A brewery worker from Adelsried, a village near Augsburg, Kreuz spoke no English, had taken a single flight to Berlin, and except for a previous day trip to Switzerland, had never before undertaken international travel when he boarded a World Airways charter flight from Germany to San Francisco on October 3, 1977.

At the time of the trip, his only immediate family were two sisters living in Germany, and he was living alone as a bachelor.

The aircraft stopped at the Bangor International Airport to refuel and allow passengers to clear American customs and immigration before re-boarding.

While he was half asleep, a flight attendant stopped by his seat and wished him a pleasant visit to San Francisco; she had finished her shift and was leaving the plane.

This led Kreuz to believe mistakenly that he had arrived in California, and he disembarked and took a taxi into the city, asking the driver for "sleep".

The taxi drive took him to the Bangor House hotel, where he rented a room.

For four days, Kreuz vainly searched for the Golden Gate Bridge and other San Francisco landmarks.

The only sight which resonated with his prior image of the California city were the two local Chinese restaurants; he dined at one, knowing the fame of San Francisco's Chinatown.

He concluded he was in a suburb of the metropolis, and began to realize his mistake after he was forced to leave his room after the hotel was completely booked for parents' weekend at the University of Maine.

A taxi driver later responded to his request to be taken to San Francisco, informing him that it was 6000 km away.

A friend of Gertrude and Kenneth Romine overheard Kreuz asking for directions to San Francisco in a Bangor pub; knowing the Romines spoke German, the friend contacted the couple on Friday, October 14.

The Romines took Kreuz to the Black Rose German-American restaurant in nearby Old Town, Maine, which they owned and was managed by their son Ralph Coffman.

Gertrude was the first to hear his story and give him a complete picture of where he was.

The Romines and Coffman subsequently found him a hotel room in the nearby town of Milford while acting as his hosts and trying to figure out what to do.

His story was picked up by the local press on October 20, and soon went national.

The people of Bangor were so touched and amused to be mistaken for San Francisco that over the next 10 days Kreuz was transformed into a local celebrity.

He was the guest of honor at an Oktoberfest event sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce, was made an honorary member of the Penobscot tribe and Old Town Rotary Club, received the keys to the city, met fellow local celebrity Andre the Seal, and flew to the state capital in Augusta on October 25 to meet Governor James B. Longley and Secretary of State Markham Gartley.

At his own request, he visited a McDonald's and was allowed to flip the hamburgers.

Originally, Kreuz was to return to Germany on Sunday, October 23, when the charter flight would stop at Bangor for fuel; however, he first declared his plans to return to Bangor in 1978.

Coffman struggled with arranging a flight through World Airways for nearly a week, and called Senator William D. Hathaway for assistance.

World Airways offered Kreuz seats on flights from Bangor to catch up with his original scheduled charter on Friday (October 21) or late Monday (October 24).

The return flight was scheduled to depart Oakland, California at 11 AM on Tuesday, October 25 and was scheduled originally to stop in Bangor for fuel, but World Airways eliminated the stopover in Bangor, and needed to get Kreuz on board when the flight departed Oakland or stopped in Chicago instead.

Kreuz could not be found in time for the Friday flight and refused the Monday flight as he had been given only a few hours' notice to board.

Instead, Kreuz and his hosts said he would board a return flight on October 31, although World Airways did not have a flight scheduled to Germany for that day.

Kreuz's story was reported in Time magazine, by the Associated Press, and on NBC's Today Show, where host Tom Brokaw lauded the people of Bangor, Maine for being such good hosts.

CBS Evening News aired segments on Kreuz two nights in a row.

Stern and Der Spiegel reported his story in West Germany.

The citizens of San Francisco were equally amused, and the San Francisco Examiner announced on October 26 they would fly Kreuz and Coffman to their city on October 28, where he was given an even stronger dose of celebrity treatment.

Kreuz was not impressed by San Francisco upon his arrival, noting the lack of trees on the trip from the airport.

Mayor George Moscone gave him the key to the city.

Kreuz also was feted in Chinatown, where he was inducted into the Wong Family Association during a banquet held at the Empress of China restaurant, and received a standing ovation when he was invited to enter the ring at the Grand National Rodeo and Horse Show in the Cow Palace, where he was presented with a white cowboy hat, having received a Native American head-dress in Maine.