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[[newspaper clipping]]
12-A Oakland Tribune, Sunday, April 8, 1956

[[image - photograph of plane]]
[[caption]] PIONEER PLANE––A flight by veteran Oakland aviator Leon D. Cuddeback 30 years ago last week in a Swallow biplane (like that pictured above) was the start of the air service which later became United Air Lines. [[/caption]]

CUDDEBACK
Oakland Flier Began Airline 30 Years Ago

After he'd help cut the sagebrush off a level pasture, Leon D. Cuddeback, then 28, took off in a frail Swallow biplane from Pasco, Wash., 30 years ago Friday.

That flight over the mountains to another pasture cleared by the American Legion at Boise and thence to Elko, a city which had an airport, was the birth of United Air Lines, one of the Nation's greatest air carriers.

When Cuddeback's mechanic swung the wooden propeller to wind up the underpowered motor of the Swallow for takeoff, it marked the start of an airline that has since flown 38,000,000 passengers for a total of 24,511,330,000.

PACKS THE MAIL

Cuddeback's plane–whizzing along at 85 miles an hour–carried 261 pounds of mail between Pasco, which he left at 6 a.m., and Elko, 460 miles away, where he landed at 12:38 p.m.

The Swallow was one of six purchased by Walter T. Varney, a California aviation enthusiast, who hired an accountant, a traffic promotor, four mechanics and four pilots with Cuddeback as the chief flier.  Today Cuddeback is investigator in charge of the Civil Aeronautics Board Bureau of Safety Investigation office at Metropolitan Oakland International Airport.

The fledging air line, begun on the basis of a Government air line authorization, extended its lines to reach the Bay Area by 1931.  For many years, it served Oakland and Alameda and Los Angeles and Central Valley cities.
[[/newspaper clipping]]