Early Airmail Delivery
According to Edward A. Keogh in “A Brief History of the Air Mail Service of the U. S. Post Office Department (May 15, 1918 – August 31, 1927)” [http://www.airmailpioneers.org/history/Sagahistory.htm], the first air mail service in the United States was in September 1911, when Earle L. Ovington was appointed an air mail carrier and, flying out of an air field at Nassau Boulevard, Long Island, N.Y. between September 23 and 30, he delivered a total of 32,415 post cards, 3,993 letters and 1,062 circulars to Mineola, N. Y. a distance of about 33 miles by road. The mail pouches were dropped at an air field in Mineola where the postmaster picked them up. One of those post cards was sent to Bloomington by Samuel B. Wylie, grandson of Theophilus and Rebecca Wylie. Addressed to his sister, Reba, Sam’s message on the back side of the card reads: “Am sending you this from the areoplane meet at Nassau Boulevard. It leaves the grounds by areoplane. Hope you get it. S. B. W.” The front of the card depicts the “New Wright Machine.” Sam, a commercial artist, was living in New York City in 1911, but he had grown up in Wylie House, raised by his grandma, Rebecca Wylie, and his aunt, Louisa Boisen, after his father died in 1890.
