| Author | Message | ||
     Slaughter |
We have a daily exchange of emails among a group of us with common interests. As varied a group as you can imagine from NASA to Smithsonian to Airlines to teachers and newspaper writers... but this really hooked me in yesterday from Albion Bowers, NASA: Giant Concrete Arrows... This Really Exists: Giant Concrete Arrows That Point Your Way Across America...  Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American Southwest, A hiker or a backpacker will run across something puzzling: A large concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in length, Sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere. What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark? Landing beacons for flying saucers? Earth’s turn signals?  No, they're markers for the Transcontinental Air Mail Route  On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast Airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed up shop. There were no good aviation charts in those days, So pilots had to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that flying in bad weather was difficult, and night flying was just about impossible. The Postal Service solved the problem with the world’s first ground-based Civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that would extend from New York to San Francisco. Every ten miles, pilots would pass a bright yellow Concrete arrow. Each arrow would be surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower rotating beacon. (A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon.)  Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so. Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it seems, could follow a series of bright Yellow arrows straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. By 1924, just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio. The next summer, it reached all the way to New York, and by 1929 it spanned the continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems worldwide.  Radio and radar are, of course, infinitely less cool than a concrete Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea, but I think we all know how this story ends. New advances in communication and navigation technology made the big arrows obsolete, and the Commerce Department decommissioned the beacons in the 1940s. The steel towers were torn down and went to the war effort but the hundreds of arrows remain. Their yellow paint is gone, Their concrete cracks a little more with every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for coyotes and tumbleweeds. But they’re still out there. (Message edited by slaughter on September 21, 2013) | ||
| Buellish |
That's cool. | ||
| Jim2 |
Never heard of that, thanks for sharing. Every ten miles is a lot of markers! | ||
| Mighty_mouse |
Steve you wouldn't be a fan of "orsm" would you? | ||
| Wolfridgerider |
That is pretty cool... thanks for sharing | ||
| 46champ |
Thanks Steve for the story I knew about the beacons on the towers but I never knew about the Arrows. I might have to go looking for one if I ever get to Rural Nevada again. Once built out there nothing ever goes away unless torn down. | ||
| Iamike |
I was looking for a listing of the sites and their coordinates. It would be a fun scavenger hunt to see how many are still around. It looks like most of the articles I found are just copies of each other. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
Damn that's really funny, I fell over one of the articles about this about 2 weeks ago while looking for something else entirely (as you do) & thought to myself at the time that I ought to post up about it but never got around to it & now can't even remember how I came across the subject. | ||
| Bandm |
I was looking for a listing of the sites and their coordinates. It would be a fun scavenger hunt to see how many are still around. https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?source=gplus-ogsb& ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=213732418950957933334.0 004e1e9dedbfbfa2281f d.aWM,http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CE4QFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atchistory.org%2FHistory%2FWestern%2520Airway%2520Beacons%2520List.xls&ei=I5lBUurfBYuqqQG1k4CoCQ&usg=AFQjCNEHlBYWk_SKOLXugWbzlhDUDGyMZg&sig2=iZIhZdZ_WOcj7jwjWOLYCA&bvm=bv.52434380,d.aWM d.aWM,http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&ved=0CFUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.atchistory.org%2FHistory%2FEastern%2520Airway%2520Beacons%2520List.xls&ei=I5lBUurfBYuqqQG1k4CoCQ&usg=AFQjCNGe_DfxGEiDdazUf-oV6sR3J8cnWg&sig2=OfGvjsGvOrwn7jlN8sk7ZA&bvm=bv.52434380,d.aWM (Message edited by bandm on September 24, 2013) | ||
| Paint_shaker |
That's cool! | ||
| Bluzm2 |
To cool! One not too far away, good destination for a fall ride! | ||
| Iamike |
You guys are amazing, a wealth of info. Who'd ever figure on a motorcycle board. | ||
| Slaughter |
It's amazing how many have been tracked down. I'd wonder if somewhere deep in the dark recesses of Post Office, there might be lat/long of each? | ||
| Fireboltwillie |
imagine a rally/race with each arrow station being a checkpoint. i'd be up for that! | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
OK, who's got a plane? Somebody needs to go fly over them all & mark their GPS coordinates, shouldn't be too hard to find them after all.  Would be a good ADV rider trip. | ||
| Kenm123t |
I can fly it So get Slaughter to get the keys to the ground attack plane he has at work It could be fun! Really Fun If Mike Dillon can loan me one of his toys! | ||
| Aesquire |
Been meaning to cruise X-country in an ultralight, that would be an awesome route. | ||
| Bandm |
It's amazing how many have been tracked down. I'd wonder if somewhere deep in the dark recesses of Post Office, there might be lat/long of each? If you click the blue link of the pid column on the spread sheets you will get this for each location. http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_mark.prl?PidBox =GR1830 |
