| Summary: |
Late in 1918, air mail service in the United States moved from being an experiment into the first phases of a complex nationwide system, under the U.S. Post Office Department. Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, a small town in central Pennsylvania, was in the right place at the right time -- exactly where a refueling stop was needed for the biplanes flying the air mail route from New York to Cleveland. In a few months' time, Bellefonte built an airfield and became the only scheduled stop in Pennsylvania for the early U.S. air mail. This is a story of Bellefonte's role during the period when the government operated the air mail, 1918-1927, including tales about the daredevil pilots, based on contemporary local newspaper articles and using numerous photographs, many of them published for the first time. Every pilot flying on the eastern sector of the air mail system knew Bellefonte, and many of them formed ties with the residents. The lives -- and deaths -- of these brave men mattered very much to their local friends. This book offers a unique, local viewpoint of one of the most exciting periods of national history -- when Bellefonte helped to fly the U.S. mail.
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