“While these flights represented the beginning of commercial aviation in the state, no regularly-scheduled service would begin until after World War I,” wrote Pellegreno. They contained about 3,000 pieces of mail, the largest amount of airmail at the time in Iowa. Beachey’s biplane was equipped with mail pouches attached to its lower wings. Pouches containing approximately 2,500 pieces of mail were dropped from the sky by aviators and delivered to the post office via mail wagon.Ī second sanctioned airmail flight occurred two months later in Cedar Falls where pilot Lincoln Beachey was to perform a flight exhibition but a local postal employee convinced Beachey to transport mail. In Iowa, wrote Pellegreno, the first sanctioned airmail route was established at a Dubuque air meet held in July 1912. Until then, mail was transported by land and water.
In 1911, according to Ann Holtgren Pellegreno’s “Iowa Takes To The Air: Volume One 1845-1918,” the Postal Service began delivering airmail with short, regional routes on the East Coast. Photo courtesy of Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Mail truck at left onto de Havilland DH-4 mail plane at right in Omaha, Neb. Unidentified men in 1925 load mail sacks from U.S.
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