U.S. Air Mail Beacons Across Nevada - Fernley to Beowawe

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Wow Ski great info.Nice to see just how many of the arrows are left.
Frank

 

[ski3pin]

Wow Ski great info.Nice to see just how many of the arrows are left.
Frank

We don't find out unless we go out and look.

Thanks for the kind comment, Frank!

 

[OregonOzzy]

Ski, awesome report as usual. We have enjoyed so many of your travels and been inspired to make our own journeys. My son and I are history buffs especially when it involves aircrafts and militaria. While reading your post, he remembered seeing something about these beacons in a museum in one of our travels. Of course we found our pictures from 2 summers ago. While visiting the Baker Heritage Museum, Baker City, OR...here are some pictures of a surviving beacon in that museum we took.......

 

[ski3pin]

Oregon Ozzy, great stuff! That is on the Elko, Nevada to Pasco, Washington route - Contract Air Mail Route 5.


Very nice that the Baker City Museum has this display. We must get up there. I believe we have a friend we can visit there too!

 

[ski3pin]

For any airway beacon fans who've been following, I've added some additional information to the blog post about individual beacon sites I found going through Department of Commerce's Air Commerce Bulletins from the early 1930's.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Oregon Ozzy, great stuff! That is on the Elko, Nevada to Pasco, Washington route - Contract Air Mail Route 5.


Very nice that the Baker City Museum has this display. We must get up there. I believe we have a friend we can visit there too!

Come on up!

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Oregon Ozzy, thanks for posting those photos! We’ve wanted to stop in, and now we have even more incentive!

 

[Jack]

Thanks for your fascinating travelogue and amazing background information. And Foy's comment made it even richer.

It was sufficiently engrossing that I followed one of the links to find that Portland has an extant tower that was on the Seattle - San Francisco route. . It was electric, and probably run off the city grid. You can't really get close enough to see how much of the arrow is left; clearly, a good part of it has been removed.

 

[ski3pin]

Thanks for your fascinating travelogue and amazing background information. And Foy's comment made it even richer.

It was sufficiently engrossing that I followed one of the links to find that Portland has an extant tower that was on the Seattle - San Francisco route. . It was electric, and probably run off the city grid. You can't really get close enough to see how much of the arrow is left; clearly, a good part of it has been removed.

Air Mail Tower.jpg

Jack, thanks for the nice comment and the photo of the beacon on the San Francisco - Seattle Airway!

 

[clikrf8]

I really don’t like interstates and try to find alternative routes known as “Judy’s Shortcuts to nowhere”. It seems we always traveling from Battle Mountain to Winnemucca on our rockhounding road trips. There was a decent gravel road (according to Bemchmark) from exit 205 ending on 789 near Golconda.

It started off as advertised but soon degraded to a one lane narrow road with the sides beginning to wall us up. We also passed over some rotten wooden culverts that we were afraid might be be one crushed under the Blue Behemoth. We emerged from out semi-tunnel to be on a narrow shelf road with the Humboldt River below us. Nowhere to turn around so we kept going.

Finally, we reached 789 but it was shift change time at the Midas mining area so we found a dispersed site for the night. There was a steady stream of vehicles returning and coming and we didn't feel like waiting.

But the interesting part was that we found a concrete slab and an arrow slab painted a bright orange. There was a rectangular slab adjacent to another one with the arrow pointing northerly. There were several newer metal angle irons with holes anchored in the middle slab. We didn't know what they were so looked then up. Fascinating history. Apparently, the one we found was on a different route than yours according to your map.

 

[ski3pin]

clikrf8, thanks for the great story! Yes, that beacon site is along the discontinued (in 1931) route along the Humboldt River. I expect that you found either

Beacon 35 SF-SL

or

Beacon 36A SF-SL

I had not heard of either of these beacons pads and arrows being painted bright orange but I have heard or others having been painted. Although (maybe) well intentioned, painting is defacing a historic structure.

 

[clikrf8]

Yes, the paint job looked recent as in the hot Nevada sun it would fade. Here are two photos from that trip. I didn't take more as we were concerned we would get stuck. No winch and nothing to winch to.

https://www.wanderthewest.com/forum/gallery/album/1472-nevada-wanderings/

Valmy power plant in background.

 

[ski3pin]

Very nice photos! Thanks for sharing them. That is Beacon 36A on the discontinued Humboldt River route. Most of the remaining beacon sites (and arrows) can be driven to or just a short walk.

 

[DavidGraves]

Howdy

Unsure if it has been mentioned but I just noticed a Beacon, very similar in appearance, at an old truck stop alongside Rt I-80 in Green River, Wyoming.......

It has been elevated I think, and perhaps formed a "billboard" for the old motel, garage and, later, fuel stop.....

Of course, I80 lies concurrent with old Rt 30 and likely older stage routes and the short lived Pony Express mail route here.

David Graves

 

[ski3pin]

Howdy

Unsure if it has been mentioned but I just noticed a Beacon, very similar in appearance, at an old truck stop alongside Rt I-80 in Green River, Wyoming.......

It has been elevated I think, and perhaps formed a "billboard" for the old motel, garage and, later, fuel stop.....

Of course, I80 lies concurrent with old Rt 30 and likely older stage routes and the short lived Pony Express mail route here.

David Graves

This it?

link

if so, the concrete pad and arrow are about a half mile away on a hill. The beacon tower was moved down to its current location. Good eye, Mr. Graves! Interstate 80 has numerous airway beacon sites close by.

 

[DavidGraves]

That's the one....even at speed and lots of trucks , it was obvious.

Funny, but that particular route thru the hills has been a passage for millenia ...even likely for migrating animals.

Maybe the airmail needed to follow land routes to get to the same places.....

or places to land in a pinch.

DG

 

[DavidGraves]

Oh BTW Goggle says it is located in Point of Rocks, WY.

My 1854.5 miles in three days from Kansas were a bit of a blur.

DG

 

[ski3pin]

For those of you traveling Interstate 15 in Idaho, there is a restored beacon site on the Salt Lake - Great Falls airway at the site of the Dubois Department of Commerce Intermediate Landing Field (now Dubois Municipal Airport). The location is 44° 10.131'N 112° 13.461'W.

 

[Elken]

I'll look for that next time I'm on I15.

Thanks

 

[Foy]

For those of you traveling Interstate 15 in Idaho, there is a restored beacon site on the Salt Lake - Great Falls airway at the site of the Dubois Department of Commerce Intermediate Landing Field (now Dubois Municipal Airport). The location is 44° 10.131'N 112° 13.461'W.

That's way cool to see the route map in an area one is very familiar with. Dubois, ID is on I-15 just south of the MT-ID border at Monida, MT (clever name, eh? On the ID side there's a community of Idamon).

The Continental Divide is the state line at Monida Pass and with an elevation around 6,800' it's the high point between SLC and Great Falls, MT. From Monida Pass to Great Falls, the route "flies the river" down the Missouri feeders Red Rock River, Beaverhead River, Jefferson River, to Three Forks and the Missouri River. I can readily envision intrepid flyers in open-cockpit Jennys winging it north out of SLC, keeping the Wasatch, Tetons, and the Centennials on their right wingtip, shooting the gap at Monida Pass, and flying the rivers (and the railroads) all the way to GF.

Foy