Viewing page 41 of 58

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

The only thing an adam's apple does is wither.

^[[N. Y. Eve. Post. 8/3/29:n. 12]]

FIRST U. S. AIR MAIL
WAS PUBLICITY GAG

"Route No. 1" Connected Savannah Baseball Park With Waiting Train Mile Away

POSTMARKED NOV. 25, 1911

Savannah, Ga., Aug (AP)-Aviation's stock phrase, "air minded," was still unborn, says Savannah Post Office officials, when Beckwith Havers gave Savannah and the nation the first recorded air mail route.

"Air Mail Route No. 1," so designated by the then Postmaster General, Frank H. Hitchcock, was entirely intracity. It began at the Savannah baseball park November 25, 1911, and ended less than a mile away, where the mail bag was dropped to a waiting post office car. Its first and only functioning netted the Government $2.84.

George H. Herbert, secretary of the Savannah Automobile Association at the time, fathered the first air mail flight to attract attendance at automobile races. Persons at the races bought post cards and mailed them to friends direct from the park.

Just where the cards and a few letters of the first air mailing went is not known, as no post office record was kept of them. Nor has any one claimed possession of the original canceled stamps.

But authorization of Major Henry Blun, then postmaster at Savannah, the records in Washington and a rubber cancellation stamp at the Savannah office reading "Route 7, U. S. Air Mail, Savannah," testify that the first air mail zealously adhered to all the red tape of Uncle Sam's postal service.

Havers, now connected with Airships Inc., at Hammondsport, N. Y., was even duly sworn in as acting Government pilot.