Page 152 - Demo

This cover commemorates the 50th anniversary of the first air-mail flight that was operated by the United States Post Office Department. It was flown on September 23, 1911 by Earle Lewis Ovington. The flight was made in a Bl%u00e9riot XI from the Nassau Boulevard aerodrome in Garden City, New York to Mineola, New York. When Ovington reached Mineola, he tossed his mail bag out of the cockpit and it burst open when it hit the ground, scattering the 640 letters and 1,280 postcards. Included in the mail was a letter to himself from the Post Office Department designating him as Official Air Mail Pilot #1. Besides being an early aviator, Ovington was once a lab assistant to Thomas Edison. He died on July 21, 1936, at the age of 57.Earle Ovington, sitting in his airplane, accepting the first sack of air mail from Postmaster General Frank Harris Hitchcock.