Airmail Comes to Josephine and Curry counties

Airmail service in the United States officially began on May 15, 1918.

The first route was between Washington D.C. and New York City, with a stop in Philadelphia.

Glen Wooldridge, our own famous "river man," describes how airmail came to the small communities located along the Rogue River in this way:

"...mail was still coming into that area by mule trail.  They used to have some airmail envelopes they sold at Marial that said:

This letter will go 16 miles by pack train to Illahe, 9 miles by auto to Agness, 32 miles down the Rogue River by mail boat to Gold Beach, then by auto stage, 152 miles to Grants Pass by way of Crescent City.  Then it will be put on a railroad train and taken 32 miles to Medford and put on a plane and sped to its destination."

Today, almost 100 years later, mail from Josephine County is still trucked 32 miles to Medford!  

Photo courtesy of Elf, taken May 19, 2008.

Mail is still carried by mule train to Supai, Arizona.