Like the Pony Express riders before them, pilots working for the U.S. Air Mail Service carrying mail across Wyoming in the early 1920s and 1930s needed steely nerves and horsepower to accomplish their missions.
Fog, snow, ice were the enemies, and navigation required keen eyes and steady hands on the stick and firm feet on the rudder as the pilots flew beneath the clouds looking for a landmark while trying to avoid mountains.
The 280 miles east-to-west across Wyoming included a particularly dangerous Elk Mountain area.
Cheyenne’s David Marcum, a historian on Wyoming aviation, has researched and lectured about early aviation in the state. He characterizes the men who flew the mail as “fearless” and “committed.” They also were part of a national experiment to create an aviation industry and catch up with aviation technology efforts in Europe.
“They had this commitment to getting the mail through,” Marcum said. “But remember, it was always secondary to proving that airplanes could fly on a regular basis in any kind of weather, safely from coast to coast, and on a schedule.”
Marcum said the U.S. Postal Service after years of lobbying Congress received a small budget to begin the U.S. Air Mail Service in 1918 between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., that showed what was possible. In 1920, a transcontinental air route was established between New York City and San Francisco, California. In the West, the route followed the transcontinental railroad.
Pilots were soon seen in the skies over southern Wyoming following the Union Pacific rail line across the state.
For its Wyoming effort, the U.S. Air Mail Service talked the municipalities of Cheyenne, Rawlins and Rock Springs into building hangars for their service. Marcum said the agency did not have a lot of funds, so postal officials tried to leverage local support for the effort.
Between 1920 and 1936 in Wyoming there were at least six fatal crashes that involved mail pilots, according to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives.
There were possibly hundreds of other forced landings, Marcum said.
‘Seat-Of-The-Pants Flying’
Initial flying was only in daylight, and the U.S. Air Mail Service used De Havilland DH-4 biplane aircraft that it had modified for mail service purposes.
The only instrument the pilots used was a compass in an open-cockpit plane — but often that was not reliable. They also were able to receive radio communication about weather, but had no means to transmit.
“A lot of their flying was seat of the pants flying, where, basically, they relied on their knowledge of the environment, or knowledge of the local landscape, their knowledge of landmarks, and so they would fly below the ceiling,” Marcum said. “Well, you know, sometimes the ceiling would be ground level, and so they would be really, really low.”
Marcum said there is one story about a pilot named Frank Yager who found the ceiling so bad that he landed and taxied along his route to Cheyenne for a short time, hopping fences with his plane until he was able to take off again.
Yager was also a pilot who flew to a fatal mail plane crash site in Rock Springs that occurred May 5, 1921, to pick up the remaining charred mail from the wreck.
The dead pilot was Walter M. Bunting, who had crashed during takeoff. The Casper Daily Tribune had reported that Bunting had experienced other mishaps just a week before the wreck.
“The victim of hard luck last week, while flying from Rock Springs to (Cheyenne), lost his way (and) followed the Colorado & Southern tracks instead of those of the Union Pacific and made a forced landing at the U.S. Jones farm near Wheatland, 100 miles off of his course,” the newspaper reported.
Forced Landings
Force landings also were routine.
Marcum said one of the noted pilots who flew mail for the U.S. Air Mail Service and later for Boeing Air Transport, Hal Collison, reportedly had 30 to 40 force landings during his mail career.
One of those was Jan. 6, 1923, when at 12,000 feet and “with a gale at the tail of ship,” he lost power.
“He swung his ship into the wind and landed in a pasture without difficulty,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported Jan. 7, 1923. “Then was amazed to discover that the propeller was missing. The eight bolts holding it to the shaft had been shorn cleanly off.”
John F. Milatzo is the only know Wyoming born pilot who participated in the U.S. Air Mail Service. He became the last pilot to die for the service before it was turned over to contractors. (Courtesy David Marcum Collection) 
(Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Wyoming Gov. Nellie Tayloe Ross broke ground for a new replacement hanger for the U.S. Air Mail Service on July 10, 1925. The date on the photo is wrong. (Courtesy David Marcum Collection) 
The U.S. Air Mail Service’s hanger at Rock Springs was probably the most attractive in the system. (Courtesy David Marcum Collection) 
Wyoming Congressman Charles Winter gave tribute to the heroism of Wyoming U.S. Air Mail Service pilots in 1925. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
Left, the Casper Daily Tribune reported on Nov. 8, 1920, the death of the U.S. Air Mail Service’s first pilot in Wyoming, John P. Woodward. Right, the Casper Daily Tribune on May 6, 1921 reported on the efforts to investigate a Rock Springs air crash and retrieve the mail. (Courtesy Newspapers.com) 
The Casper Daily Tribune reported on the death of a pilot and mechanic for the U.S. Air Mail Service who died while testing an aircraft. (Courtesy Newspapers.com)
Down, But Still Delivering
Pilots who were forced down by weather or mechanical issues often resorted to their feet to get the mail delivered. Another noted pilot, Jimmy Murray was trying to fly through the pass between Elk Mountain and Medicine Bow Peak in a snowstorm and crashed at Sand Lake.
“And so, he threw the mail over his shoulders and walked through, by all accounts, knee-deep snow, to Arlington,” Marcum said. “And then the folks at Arlington got him to Medicine Bow, which was a station on the Union Pacific Railroad, and he was able then to get the mail forwarded.
“He was also able to take the train back to Cheyenne and jump into another airplane.”
Murray would go on to get law degree and to become a vice president of Boeing.
In 1924, the U.S. Postal Service started lighting up the airway route by installing flashing beacons starting from Chicago to Cheyenne to allow for the start of night flying along the route. Those beacons would eventually be installed across the state as well.
In 1925, the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring the U.S. Postal Service to turn over the air service to private contractors. That occurred in 1927. Marcum said the Boeing Air Transport Company, which would later become part of United Airlines, obtained the contract for mail service between Chicago and San Francisco.
The last pilot to die flying for the Air Mail Service was a Cheyenne native named John F. Milatzo. He was born on Oct. 1, 1899, in Cheyenne, graduated from high school and joined the agency that would later become the U.S. Weather Service.
He started flying for the Air Mail Service on Feb. 24, 1923. He crashed in bad weather with snow and sleet near Goshen, Indiana.
“As far as I know, Milatzo is the only person born and bred in Wyoming who flew for the Air Mail Service,” Marcum said.
The Department of Commerce became responsible for the airway and established giant 70-foot concrete arrows and other features to help pilots find their way across the state. Airways also were opened up to other areas of the country and state.
As contractors took over mail delivery, new aircraft were introduced. But crashes did not stop.
Contractor Incident
One of those aircraft, a Boeing 221 Monomail, piloted by Wyoming Air Service pilot Al Lucas on an air mail route between Billings and Cheyenne, crashed near Glendo, Wyoming, on May 27, 1935 just after 4 p.m.
“Lucas was trapped in fog enroute from Billings, Mont., to Cheyenne and crashed into a hillside about 13 miles south of Glendo late Monday afternoon,” the Casper Daily Tribune reported Wednesday, May 29, 1935. “His body was found by searchers, some of whom trudged all night through the vicinity, seeking the wreckage.”
Wyoming Air Services President Dick Leferink at the time characterized the pilot as one of the most conservative among his team and the most popular. Lucas had nearly 5,000 hours of experience in the air.
In later years, pressurized aircraft that could fly over the mountains, the introduction of instruments, and full-fledged navigation systems would come. But Marcum believes the state’s place in the story of aviation and the sacrifices of the early air-mail pilots are significant.
He points to the later United Airlines facility in Cheyenne that included a pilot training school, stewardess school, mechanics school and big maintenance facility for the airline as proof.
“For a period, Cheyenne and southern Wyoming was smack dab in the middle of the development of commercial aviation in this country,” he said. “It’s important because it says a lot about that generation.
“I think it says a lot about the role of government and economic development … there are lessons here that are extremely important … on top of which it’s just a good story.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
