U.S. Postal Airmail Service 100 years later

The beginning of May marked the 100-year anniversary of the United States Postal Airmail service.

The first delivery of mail from an airplane is often credited to Earl Oyington after he dropped a sack of letters and postcards from an airplane still 500 feet above the ground; however, that was in the fall of 1911.

Whereas, the U.S. Postal Service says a small group of Army pilots initiated the world’s first regularly scheduled airmail service in May 1918 between Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

The U.S. Postal Service finalized plans last month to honor the beginning of airmail service by dedicating two United States Air Mail Forever stamps created in the style of art popular at the end of World War I.

The first stamp commemorates the pioneering spirit of the pilots who first flew the mail in the early years of aviation.

The first-day-of-issue ceremony took place last week, on May 1, at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, DC.

A second historical air-mail stamp will be issued later this summer.

Both stamps, feature a design transferred to paper from an engraved plate highlighting a Curtiss JN-4H (Jenny) biplane used in early delivery flights.

The Jenny was also featured on the stamps originally issued in 1918 to commemorate the beginning of regularly scheduled airmail service.

For more information, visit the Toccoa Post Office.