Thank you for providing all this great information on these sites! I have looked at a couple close to where I am located and sadly cannot see on google earth any sign of the concrete arrows However, this is a very extensive list and I really do appreciate the link to it!Īre you making any progress finding arrows in your area? I may need to plan a trip over just to visit this spot and grab the oldest cache in Oklahoma. That place has been on my wish list for a while, but I'm always in a hurry when I'm in Tulsa. There are no caches in the area at this time, but benchmark GH0942 is nearby. According to the one source I've seen (below), this is a recreation of the arrow used to mark the airport for a visit from Charles Lindbergh back in the 20's. You can clearly see the word TULSA and an arrow pointing due east. That's a point due west of the Tulsa Airport. EJ1855 is the only one of those that looks like it might still be easy to spot the remains of. From the descriptions I got, they all included the arrow, the light, and the generator house. I didn't see any towers, arrows, or even buildings. I got bored once and looked them all up on google earth and they all seem to be gone. I was aware of ten in my state of Arkansas simply from looking through my benchmarks database. Note that this isn't my list and I take no responsibility and claim no credit for it. You can find a list of the markers in the western US here. The Post Office Department would continue to deliver the mail, but commercial airmail companies did all the flying, and the Commerce Department managed the airway.I know that they did exist, and it's my understanding that some of them still exist out west. As this change occurred, the Post Office Department transferred all the lights, landing fields, beacons, and airways to the Department of Commerce. This same year, the airmail service was contracted out to commercial aviation companies, and in early 1926, the first commercial airmail flight was made. By 1925, the lighted airway went from New York to Salt Lake City. In addition, 289 acetylene-powered blinker beacons were installed every three miles, which were visible up to nine miles. Every 25 miles from Chicago to Cheyenne, Wyoming, there were emergency landing fields, and these were between five regular landing fields in a particular section of the route.Īt these regular fields, beacons were installed and visible up to 150 miles, while beacons at the emergency fields between were visible for 80 miles. Air Mail Airplane on Display in New York City 1927 National ArchivesĪirplanes were outfitted with luminescent instruments and navigation lights during this time, and a lighted airway began to be built along points of the route in 1924. This flight convinced Congress to fund and expand the airmail service. On February 22, 1921, a flight was flown day and night the entire distance. The mail was carried by train at night and flown during the day. It instituted one in 1920 from New York to San Francisco, with stops in cities along the way. The Post Office Department then developed plans to offer a long-range, transcontinental airmail route. Pilots relied entirely on using landmarks and dead reckoning to complete the route. In 1918, the Post Office Department started its first scheduled airmail service between New York and Washington, D.C. In 1911, pilots began making experimental daily mail flights dropping mailbags from Garden City Estates, New York, to Mineola, New York. What remains today are abandoned concrete arrows dotting the U.S. to provide a navigation guide for the pilots flying airmail across the country long before there was GPS. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the United States Department of Commerce constructed concrete arrows on the ground across the U.S.
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