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[[newspaper clipping]]
Michael Demarest
-The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, Cal., Mon, Feb. 18, 1952

First Airmail Reached Santa Rosa 41 Years Ago

PIANOWIRE PIONEER - If you were living here-abouts just 41 years ago today, you might have received a belated Valentine, airmail from Petaluma. Because on Feb. 18, 1911, Fred J. Wiseman returned home in the pianowire plane he built in a tent near Petaluma. When he landed with a dead motor in a cow pasture south of Santa Rosa, he delivered the first airmail ever flown in the United States.

One of those letters was from J.E. Olmsted, Petaluma postmaster, to H.L. Tripp, his opposite number here.

"Dear Sir & Friend," it urged. "Speed the day when the United States mail... of which this letter is the pioneer, may all leave by the air route with speed and safety."

Mr. Wiseman - "intrepid birdman" as he was described in The Press Democrat of that date - scored another first. He delivered copies of this newspaper en route. The circulation department still hasn't found a way to do this with speed and safety, however. The pilot confessed afterward: "I dropped the newspapers over from time to time, but I didn't bother about seeing they landed near any subscribers. I just wanted to finish that 16-mile stretch." We've heard of carrier boys who felt the same way.