Page 9 - Demo

On June 6, 7, and 8 of 1912, Evansville%u2019s local newspaper, the Evansville Courier, sponsored an Aviation Meet at the city%u2019s fairgrounds. There were two aviators in town, Lincoln Beachey and Horace Kearney, for %u201cthe greatest show of aerial races and spectacular feats ever seen in this part of the country,%u201d according to an article in the Boonville Weekly Enquirer.Beachey and Kearney were also there to deliver mail via airplane for the first time in Indiana. To accommodate them, the Evansville Postmaster, Charles Sihler, established a postal substation at the fairgrounds. On each of the three days of the event, the aviators flew a mail pouch from the fairgrounds to Woodmere, Indiana, which was about two miles away. When they arrived they dropped the pouch from the plane, the mail was retrieved by a person on the ground, and then taken to the Post Office. About 2,500 especially printed postcards were mailed over the three-day event. This was all approved in advance by the Post Office Department in Washington, DC, and is considered a Pioneer Flight by the American Air Mail Society. It was one of six Indiana Pioneer Flights in 1912.Twenty years later, on June 6, 7, and 8 of 1932, a special cachet was affixed to envelopes to honor the 20th anniversary of those flights made by Beachey and Kearney, and cancelled locally. Kearney died on December 15, only seven months after being in Evansville. His aviation career ended after only 18 months when he was killed in California on a flight over the Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Beachey was also killed in California, in 1915, while attempting an inverse loop over San Francisco Bay. For collectors, covers were available with a cachet in a different color for each of the three days. Cancelled in black on the 1st day, June 6, 1932. This cover also has a cachet marking the dedication of the EvansvilleHenderson Bridge over the Ohio River, which took place a month later%u2014from July 3 to July 5, 1932.