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| Not Numbered. | District of Columbia | Visited: Sept. 20, 2014 | Plaque? YES! 🙂 |
| What is it? | A plaque marking the departure site of the first continuously scheduled airmail route in the USA! |
| What makes it historical? | THE PLAQUE SAYS: The world’s first airplane mail to be operated as a continuously scheduled public service started from this field May 15, 1918.
The route connected Washington, Philadelphia, and New York. Curtiss JN 4-H airplanes with a capacity of 150 pounds of mail flew the 230 miles in about three hours. The service was inaugurated by the Post Office Department in cooperation with the aviation section of the signal corps of the U.S. Army. On August 12, 1918, the service was taken over in its entirety by the Post Office Department. OTHER TIDBITS: Making history takes serious practice, and when Major Reuben H. Fleet heard he had a matter of weeks to produce several pilots from his Army Air Service school to run this experimental program, he was dumbfounded, especially because he only had JN 4-D planes were instructional planes and not meant for carrying cargo! So, Major Fleet had to gut a couple planes, put in new engines and add gas capacity, making them JN 4-H planes. But that didn’t stop him from running out of gas twice when he was taking a plane from Belmont Park in New York to the starting grounds in Washington, D.C! The inaugural flight from Washington was observed by President Wilson and many other important folks, like Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt! When everyone had gathered and prepared for takeoff, no one had remembered to fill the plane’s gas tank! So, once that was fixed, Lieutenant George Boyle took off to hearty applause and followed the wrong railroad track out of town, crashing down in a field in Waldorf, Maryland, 20 miles southeast of his takeoff point. He had been aiming for Philadelphia. Luckily, no one was hurt, and mail was able to resume its schedule the following day! |
| How can I Help the Helpers? | HERE’S HOW:
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| How do I find it? | Listed Directions: Ohio & West Basin Drives SW (from the south end of FDR memorial go straight across park) Washington, D.C. 20418 Annotations: 2730 Rock Creek Park Trails From Annapolis: ~35mi (57km) — 0.6hrs |
| When should I go? | Whenever the mood strikes you! |