Update: This article was published in the American Air Mail Society's Air Post Journal for June-July 2024. A copy of this article is attached to this blog as a PDF.
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July 1, 1924, was a momentous day in U.S. airmail service. It was on that day that the first scheduled transcontinental airmail flight involving night flying occurred. It marked the end of the U.S. Post Office Department’s (POD) pioneering days of airmail, which included the first experimental airmail flight in 1911 and the first regularly scheduled airmail service in 1918.
Building the Infrastructure
By September 1920, the POD had laid out a transcontinental airmail route (Figure 1), but it only flew segments of that route by day. Night flights were hazardous because there were no lights in the planes or on the ground. Consequently, the mail would be placed on trains to continue its journey. The total elapsed time of that combination was about 3-1/2 days, which was only about a day faster than an entire trip by rail.
Figure 1 – Transcontinental Airmail Route as of July 1, 1924. Source: Wikipedia.
The POD proved the time savings of an all-day coast-to-coast airmail trip when it undertook an experimental flight in February 1921. While not a complete success, one relay of flights (that depended in part on bonfires to find its way) managed to carry mail from San Francisco to New York in just under 33-1/2 hours, a significant time savings over rail travel.
A lighted airway was needed to begin day and night transcontinental airmail. Responsibility for building that infrastructure fell to Paul Henderson (Figure 2), the second assistant postmaster general from 1922 to 1925. Henderson believed that airmail service should eventually be turned over to the private sector, but he strove to improve the government’s service in the meantime. He was assisted in this goal by Carl F. Egge, the general superintendent of airmail service, and J.V. Magee, an illumination engineer.
Figure 2 - Paul Henderson (1884-1951). Source: The Smithsonian Institution.
Drawing on the Army’s experience with a lighted airway between Dayton and Columbus, Ohio, the POD installed giant 36-inch electric arc beacons that stood atop 35-foot towers at airfields in Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte, and Cheyenne (Figure 3). These landing fields were well illuminated, with obstructions marked by red lights. Flashing beacon lights (Figure 4) operated by “sun valves” were installed every three miles along this 885-mile route – dubbed the “great dark belt” by The Omaha Daily News. The POD also constructed 34 emergency landing fields along the route.
Figure 3– Lighted beacon tower in Omaha together with a De Havilland DH-4 mail plane. Source: National Air and Space Museum.
Figure 4 – Airmail route beacon. Source: National Air and Space Museum.
This section of the transcontinental route was selected for nighttime flights because it was relatively flat, which made the most sense for nighttime flights. That way, pilots could cross the Appalachians, Sierras and Rockies during the relative safety of daytime. (It was only relatively safer because weather was always a potential hazard at higher elevations.)
Henderson and his colleagues went about this task methodically, as reported in the Aircraft Year Book of 1925:
There is nothing phenomenal about the development of the Air Mail. Its growth and its occupancy today…have been the natural results of vision, coupled with sufficient conservatism to make but one move at a time. When Col. Paul Henderson…determined to fly mail at night, he did not order attempts to be made forthwith. Rather did he undertake a conscientious and prolonged examination of all factors, physical and psychological.
With the lighted airway completed, in August 1923 Henderson ordered a four-day demonstration of day-and-night service. The first day was a bit shaky, but all the flights the next three days ran without delay. Congratulations poured in, and the POD won the Collier Trophy for 1923, an annual award given for the greatest achievement in aeronautics, for showing the practicability of night flying. Hopes ran high that the U.S. Congress would approve funding for day-and-night transcontinental airmail.
Like today, the legislative wheels moved slowly in the early 1920s, and it wasn’t until late March 1924 that funding was approved. Wasting no time, in early April Postmaster General Harry S. New announced that regularly scheduled day-and night transcontinental airmail flights would start July 1, 1924.
The Big Day
The POD was well prepared on July 1. The departure and arrival times at the airfields were set. Extra pilots and planes were positioned to deal with mail volume and mechanical or other problems. Henderson stationed himself in Chicago, while Egge traveled to Omaha for the nighttime transfer of mail.
Two De Havilland DH-4s took off from Hazelhurst Field in Mineola, New York at around 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) bound for Cleveland where another pilot and plane would fly the mail to Chicago. One plane was piloted by Wesley Smith; the other, E. Hamilton Lee. Between them, they carried a total of 23,600 letters weighing 590 pounds. Not surprisingly, most of the mail was philatelic or ceremonial in nature. Among the postal items on board was a letter from President Calvin Coolidge to California Governor F.W. Richardson and a self-addressed envelope from Reginald P. Brook, a physician by trade and an early airmail stamp and cover dealer (Figure 5).
Figure 5 – Front and back of Reginald P. Brook’s self-addressed stamped cover postmarked in New York, July 1, 1924. Cover is franked with a single copy of Scott C6, a 24-cent stamp to cover the postage for the three zones between New York and San Francisco. Brook was born in England around 1871 and arrived in the U.S. in 1897. He was a physician by trade. He became a member of the American Philatelic Society in 1921 and began running ads in The American Philatelist for “aeroplane” stamps for sale that year. He died in 1931 and his passing was noted in the October 1931 Airpost Journal. Source: Author’s collection.
Letters on board this flight were subject to a new set of airmail rates that went into effect on July 1. Based on Henderson’s recommendation, postage was set at 8-cents per ounce per zone with three zones: New York to Chicago, Chicago to Cheyenne, and Cheyenne to San Francisco. The POD issued 8-, 16-, and 24-cent airmail stamps in August 1923 to satisfy these new rates. We know these stamps today as U.S. Scott C4 through C6.
Henderson told the press that the San Francisco-bound mail also included a package of news reels taken in New York before the first plane left. He boasted that they would be developed and shown in San Francisco theaters less than two days after they were taken. The postage for this film came to more than $106, which means it weighed about 83 pounds, a significant percentage of the total weight carried on this initial flight.
The San Francisco pilot, Claire Vance, got off to a rough start when after lifting off from Crissy Field at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time he got lost in the fog and had to return (Figure 6). He eventually got on his way to Reno to hand off the mail to the next pilot. He carried about 15,000 letters weighing about 400 pounds. His mail included an assortment of fresh-cut California flowers from San Francisco Postmaster James L. Power and his wife to President Coolidge and the First Lady.
Figure 6 – San Francisco Postmaster Power handing a bag of mail to Pilot Claire Vance before his flight to Reno. Source: San Francisco Examiner, July 2, 1924.
At stops along the way, crowds turned out to greet the airmail pilots, especially in Omaha where the eastbound and westbound flights met (Figure 7). The Omaha Daily News headline of July 1 read, “MAIL AIRPLANES WILL ROAR INTO OMAHA TONIGHT.” When asked by the Daily News if the POD was up to the challenge, Egge simply replied, “We are ready.”
Figure 7 – Mail being unloaded in Omaha from the first mail plane from the west. Source: National Postal Museum.
Once the eastbound mail arrived in Chicago the morning of July 2, Henderson told the Associated Press, “It is only reasonable to believe that the first day’s transcontinental flight is a success. Already the Post Office Department has received many messages of congratulations.”
While premature, the congratulatory messages turned out to be warranted. The Pacific Coast mail arrived at Hazelhurst Field in New York a little after 5:00 p.m. ET in a plane piloted by Smith who spent the evening in Cleveland. That was 32 hours and 12 minutes after the leaving San Francisco and only six minutes behind schedule.
According to press reports, Smith would have arrived ahead of schedule had he not been delayed for 14 minutes in Cleveland waiting for a mail truck to arrive. The Atlantic Coast mail arrived in San Francisco 34 hours and 40 minutes after the start from Mineola.
Aftermath
Business groups, such as the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce of New York, were quick to appreciate the ability to send documents in a little more than a day coast-to-coast. By the third day of service, all the mail carried was business-related, mostly bank letters and documents; there were no ceremonial or souvenir covers on board, what Henderson would call “publicity junk” in a New York Times December 2, 1924, opinion piece.
The service also operated like clockwork. Indeed, Henderson reported in the middle of July that during the first ten days of service, 97 percent of all the flights were on time and 99.8 percent of mail arrived as scheduled. The weather still caused difficulties, but darkness did not.
The POD built on its success by extending the lighted airway eastward from Chicago to Cleveland in the summer of 1924 and westward to Rock Springs, Wyoming at the same time. By July 1, 1925, the lighted airway extended to New York, and the POD started five-night-per week overnight service between New York and Chicago. That service became daily on May 15, 1926.
The POD’s pioneering days of airmail were over. It had proven the feasibility and economic benefit of round-the-clock airmail service, and it was now time to turn over responsibility to commercial operators, as Henderson and others believed. In 1925, the U.S. Congress passed the Contract Air Mail Act, also known as the Kelly Act after Representative Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania, which allowed the POD to contract with private airlines to carry mail. By September 1, 1927, all airmail routes were being flown by private carriers.
Air transportation and travel would have taken off without the efforts of the POD, but it is fair to conclude that it would have taken longer. The POD rightfully deserves considerable credit for the development of private aviation.
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