Encyclopedia Dubuque
"Encyclopedia Dubuque is the online authority for all things Dubuque, written by the people who know the city best.”
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Affiliated with the Local History Network of the State Historical Society of Iowa, and the Iowa Museum Association.
AIRMAIL
AIRMAIL. Hoping to set a new world altitude record in Dubuque, pioneer aviators Lincoln BEACHEY and Charles Walsh and their dismantled planes arrived in Dubuque in July 1912 on the ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD. After reassembling their planes at Nutwood Park, the two men did some racing, but rain prevented their record-setting event. (1)
History was to be made another way. Dubuque was the scene of one of the first twelve flights in the United States authorized by the Post Office Department to carry mail. A temporary postal station at Nutwood Park was established by Postmaster Herman Ternes. Joseph S. Stewart, Second Assistant Postmaster General wrote: (2)
The postmaster of Dubuque, Iowa is hereby
authorized to dispatch mail on July 20 and
21, 1912, from substation on the aviation
grounds to the post office, Dubuque, Iowa,
one trip, one way each day, by aeroplane
service, number of the route 643,001.
The first three numbers identified the state where the flight was to take place. The last three numbers were assigned in the order granted. (3)
Two clerks at the postal station received mail for the flights and sold stamps and cards. To commemorate the event, a special postcard with the cancellation: "Aerial Mail Service, July 20th, 21st Dubuque, Iowa" were available. (4)
Walsh, commissioned for the flight, flew with a pouch of 1,500 pieces of mail to a field at 32nd and Jackson where he dropped the sack to the ground. Byron L. Sanborn, a mail messenger, carried the sack in a horse-drawn wagon to the downtown post office. (5)
On May 19, 1938 the "first air mail flight in the Dubuque territory" was sponsored by the Telegraph-Herald. R. L. McCaffree, the pilot of the Telegraph-Herald plane had been deputized for the flight scouted the territory from the air to find a landing field at each stop. The schedule called for the following: Leaving from Dubuque at 10:00 a.m. the plane would fly to Monticello arriving at 10:29; Manchester, arriving at 10:53; Dyersville, arriving at 11:15; Elkader, arriving at 11:42; Waukon, arriving at 12:09; Lancaster, arriving at 12:44, Platteville, arriving at 1:03, and Galena, arriving at 1:25 p.m; and returning to Dubuque at 2:43 p.m. The flight to Iowa City led to the mail being placed aboard transcontinental airliners. Similar "first flights" were made across the country as the feature event of the National Air Mail Week, May 15-21. In the event that bad weather was present M. K. Halvorson of DUBUQUE AIRWAYS INC. would serve as the co-pilot. (6)
A far riskier mail pickup was carried out by the Telegraph-Herald's pilot near Lost Nation, Iowa in May, 1939. A device invented by Francis P. Wulf, a nearby farmer. As the plane approached Wulf's devise, the pilot lowered a mailbag attached to a rope. The rope and bag were flown between two uprights from which wires directed the bag into a trap, where it was released and a second bag of mail was substituted for it. A rubber spring device eliminated the dead pull that otherwise would be expected. (7)
Regular airmail service did not begin in Dubuque until 1950. (8) The first airmail in Dubuque landed at the Dubuque AIRPORT on Tuesday, September 26, 1950 at 9:13 a.m. aboard a Mid-Continent plane. Meeting the cargo was Edward T. Freeman, assistant general superintendent of the Air Mail service in Chicago; Edward Hoffman, Dubuque superintendent of mails; and Ray Briggs, assistant postmaster.
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Source:
1. Kruse, Len. "First Airmail Flight in Iowa," Julien's Journal, July 1996, p. 50
2. Ibid.
3. "Here-Farjola," Online: http://www.rfrajola.com/pioneer/pioneer.pdf
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. "Air Mail Flight Plans Completed," Telegraph-Herald, May 10, 1938, p. 1
7. "Bags Changed During Flight," Telegraph-Herald, May 8, 1939, p. 5
8. Ibid., p. 51
