Height x Width: 6 1/2 × 7 15/16 in. (16.51 × 20.16 cm)
Type:
Covers & Associated Letters
Place:
Ohio
Date:
September 6, 1918
Description:
The first line of the Western Union telegram was in code [in care of] C 651 and contained sixty words charged to the U.S. government. Capt. Benjamin B. Lipsner received this telegram from John A. Jordan, who wired it from Bryan, Ohio, at 7:28 p.m. on September 6, 1918. A handwritten notation in the lower left corner reads, “Rec.d 8:23 p.m. Phoned Capt. Lipsner. . . .”
The telegram from Jordan, a Post Office Department representative, informed Lipsner in Chicago that pilot Edward V. “Turk” Gardner landed in Bryan, Ohio, at 5:15 p.m. on September 6, 1918, the second day of the New York-to-Chicago pathfinder survey flight. Jordan told him that Gardner took-off for Chicago at 5:50 p.m. without difficulty.
Gardner assumed he would be landing in Chicago at night in poor light. He told Jordan to have runway lights available--two fires lighted in corners of the landing field and a third smaller one in the center of the field near the area where he would be landing. Jordan added that Gardner by error had left a sack of mail in Bryan, Ohio, and ended by informing Lipsner that he was leaving for Chicago.
Topic:
Benjamin B. Lipsner Airmail Collection Search this
