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[[newspaper clipping]] FRED WISEMAN, FIRST COUNTY AVIATOR, HERE Pilot Who Flew First Mail In United States Returns For Vacation Visit Living may have been simpler back in the days before World War 1 – but aviation was considerably more complicated – what there was of it. There was very little aviation, and what there was was highly uncertain. Thus opines Fred Wiseman, Sonoma county's first aviator and the man who flew the first mail in the United States, here for a vacation visit. Back in 1910 Wiseman built an airplane – the first to be flown in this county – or in this part of the state for that matter. It was flown several times, wrecked several times and rebuilt several times. Incidentally it is the plane that is now on exhibit at Treasure Island, having been sold to the [[?kland]] Aero Club many years ago. "We had a lot of fun up at [[?ughlin]] field, near Windsor," Wiseman said. "We charged four [[?]] a head to come up and see [[?]] flights, and some of the time [[?]] flew. The main trouble was with the engine. We didn't have power enough to fly very long, or at a [[?ep]] enough angle, let alone to [[?n]] the plane around. It was a matter of either making a landing after a short, straight flight, or crashing. We always chose the former, but sometimes the [[?er]] occurred. [[?]] flew on Pismo Beach for one [[?mer]] and took in good money. [[?]] when I entered in a San Francisco competition I had money enough to install a more powerful motor and first turned [[?]] plane around, in the air, [[?]] flying out over San Francisco bay. I needed money pretty [[?badly]] about then. That's why I [[?]] turning for the first time, [[?]] a career of ground hops." Wiseman recalled that he carried the first mail on February [[?]] 1911, when he carried a letter from the postmaster of Santa [[?]] to the postmaster of Petaluma by plane. [[?s]] was eight months ahead [[?e]] flight of Earl Ovington at Garden City, Long Island, September 23, 1911, frequently recorded as the first mail flight. Wiseman now lives in San [[?]]. He is here visiting friends on a stop over to see his old [[?]] at Treasure Island. [[/newspaper clipping]] [[newspaper clipping]] FIRST PLANE USED FOR POSTAL TRANSPORT AND ENTERPRISING FLIER [[image - photograph of Wiseman in plane, portrait photograph, and photograph of Wiseman looking at scrapbook]] [[caption]] Here is the first plane to fly the airmail in the United States. Fred Wiseman, San Diego, was the pilot. The mail went Feb. 17, 1911, from Petaluma to Santa Rosa. Inset, left – Grounded for 24 years, the former barnstormer looks over his news clippings of the early days. [[/caption]] [[/newspaper clipping]] [[newspaper clipping]] NEW YORK, Dec. 19 (A.P.)– Like the three wise men of Bethlehem, the sages of science are watching a star in the east this Christmas season. Each night they swing their telescopes toward that part of the sky where a light once blazed above a manger. Their three forebears of Biblical days hardly would understand it, but the modern wise men are also hunting a birthplace – the cradle of the universe. Where is matter born? For the answer to that, their telescopes turn to the northeast and the constellation Casseopeia. Far out in the darkness, whence even light takes years to reach the earth, the star in the middle peak of that great white "W" has been behaving strangely. It flares up brightly, grows dim and flares again. Those pulses of light may be the birth throes of a nova, or "new star," a process which science never has been close enough to watch before. Science Far From Agreed "New stars" – they are really old ones, exploding – have been appearing (Continued on Page 3, Col. 7) [[/newspaper clipping]]
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