Editor of Republican Sends Letter from Frisco in Two and Half Days
The first airplane mail letter to reach Marion arrived here Wednesday night (July 1, 1924). The letter was a message from Editor and Mrs. W. O. Paisley of the Republican-Leader mailed in California on Monday to the readers of this paper.
The letter was postmarked at Berkley, California at 11 a.m. Monday and from there was taken to San Francisco, from which city it left by airplane at 6 a.m. Tuesday morning. Flying both day and night the letter reached Chicago and was in their post office at 10 a.m. From there it was dispatched to Marion, reaching here on the evening train, so that it made the trip from Berkley to Marion in two and a half days. Figuring just airplane and train time from the San Francisco post office to the Marion post office, the letter made the record- breaking speed of 28½ hours one day and 14 ½ hours. Mr. Paisley’s letter follows:
Berkley, California June 30, 1924
Dear Republican Leader Readers:
We are sending you greetings from the Pacific Coast over the first trip of the new air mail service.
The people here are wildly enthusiastic over the success of Lieut. Maughan’s trip across the continent.
The mail schedule is one where mail dropped in the mail boxes up to the last collection at night at Berkley, Oakland or San Francisco, will leave on the air mail at 6 a.m. and is due at Chicago at 7:35 a.m. the next morning.
We have been enjoying our trip thru the coast country but so far have not become as enthusiastic as many tourists. One reason is that too much of the prosperity is built upon tourist business and that of the retired investor to give it the conditions we are used to. While in places the business is on that basis there are many others, which are on a commercial footing and which are wonderfully solid.
While we know more about California fruits than any other of her products it is where there are great factories of every kind here, and the fields produce every kind of a crop. This comparison of crops of the state with the fruit is making one of the products of Hollywood. Few know anything about that city except that it is the capitol of the moving picture industry, where in fact it is a big city with many other interests. It is by far the most attractive place we have visited and has many points of interest beside the movie studios and the homes of the stars.
Some of the most talked of places prove a disappointment, but Santa Catalina Island was not one of these and our old friend, J. N. Stewart says that 95 percent of all tourists to Southern California visit the Island. He not only has charge of Mr. Wrigley’s transportation interests to the island but he still writes the advertising for Wrigley’s gum.
We find that while the Mississippi Valley has had a surplus of rains this season, here there has been a shortage. In Southern California all electric power users have had their supply cut down 25 percent on account of the water power shortage, including the street railway. Forests fires are prevalent around here; yesterday we were over the scene of the Berkley fire, which was a fearful one.
Best wishes to all,
Mr. and Mrs. W. O. Paisley
(Marion Daily Republican, July 3, 1924; Republished in “Footprints”, Volume 8, #4, 2005)