Thanks Joe. I'd forgotten it was to be running one day soon so it was a bit startling while making my daily check of the various PODs and have those shots show up when I got to EPOD. :) Ok, now it's time for another Utah-Astronomy person to snag an EPOD. patrick On 10 Feb 2015, at 10:34, Joe Bauman via Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> wrote:

Congratulations, Patrick!

Earth Science Picture of the Day

/////////////////////////////////////////// Concrete Arrows and the U.S. Mail

Posted: 10 Feb 2015 12:01 AM PST http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2015/02/concrete-arrows-and-the-us-mail.html

Excellent write up -- congrats! From: Joe Bauman via Utah-Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> To: utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2015 10:34 AM Subject: [Utah-astronomy] FW: Earth Science Picture of the Day Congratulations, Patrick! Earth Science Picture of the Day /////////////////////////////////////////// Concrete Arrows and the U.S. Mail Posted: 10 Feb 2015 12:01 AM PST http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2015/02/concrete-arrows-and-the-us-mail.html Photographer: Patrick Wiggins Summary Author: Patrick Wiggins On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast  airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express ended  operations. There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had  to eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. Of course flying  in bad weather was a challenge and often quite dangerous, and night flying  was just about impossible. The Postal Service solved the problem with the  world's first ground-based civilian navigation system; a series of lighted  beacons that would extend from New York, City, New York to San Francisco,  California. Every 16 km, pilots would pass a 21 m concrete arrow on the  ground that was painted bright yellow. At the center of each arrow there  would be a 15.5 m steel tower, topped by a million-candlepower rotating  beacon. Below the rotating light were two course lights pointing forward  and backward along the arrow. The course lights flashed a code to identify  the beacon's number. If needed, a generator shed at the tail (or feather  end) of each arrow powered the beacon and lights. The remnants of two such  arrows are shown above.   By 1924, just a year after the U.S. Congress funded it, the line of giant  concrete markers stretched from Rock Springs, Wyoming to Cleveland, Ohio.  The next summer, it reached all the way to New York and then extended all  the way to San Francisco by 1929. Around 1926, the new Aeronautics Branch  in the Department of Commerce  proposed a 650-mi air mail route linking Los  Angeles, California to Salt Lake City, Utah, passing through Washington  County, Utah. It was designated as Contract Air Mail Route 4 (CAM-4).  Western Air Express, Inc. was awarded a contract to lay out the route and  carry the mail. Their first flight was made on April 17, 1926, in a Douglas  M-2 airplane. By 1928, the route had been marked with the cement arrows and  beacon towers for navigation at night and in inclement weather. New advances in communication and navigation technology made the big arrows  obsolete, and the Commerce Department decommissioned the beacons in the  1940s. The steel towers were torn down and went to the war effort (WW II).  Today, only a few of the weathered cement arrows (less the yellow paint)  remain.   Coordinates Beacon 59 (top photo) located in Toole County, Utah: 40.750025, -112.648239 Beacon 61A (bottom photo) located above Lakepoint, Utah: 40.704554,  -112.253626 Related Links Center Pivot Irrigation Near Utah Lake TV piece about this story More articles about arrow project Earth Observatory View of Great Salt Lake from Skylab -- You are subscribed to email updates from "Earth Science Picture of the Day." To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now:  https://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailunsubscribe?k=HFbVwGF8d-D9JmjeuDrCkpQ... Email delivery powered by Google. Google Inc., 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United  States _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".