Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1923-09-05
Night Mail Flights Made Possible
by Towers Installed From
Chicago to Coast.

N0W AotA.-Glanl night eyes, eacn
more powerful than millions of can.
dies, will flare up into the dark when
the air mail service begins to span
America in few swift leaps. Cross
Ing a 3,000-mile continent in a little
more than two dozen hours requires
great guiding beams - actual land
lighthouses-to light the cloud-fecked
pathway of the intrepid pilots after
shutdown.
Such bright-burning beacons will
pierce through the night-robed zenith
In cleaning row. stretching clear
grom the foot of Lake Michigan to
the southeast corner of Wyoming,
when cross-continent mail delivery by
air starts within the next few weeks.
The dwellers in nearly two score
towns will have these permanent au-
roras for their companions ever.'
evening, and will go to bed with them
still oscillating high above their heads.
The circling columns of light will be-
come landmarks Of the night for folk
who walk upon the earth as well as
for the giant grasshopperS Of the
skies.
First in the World.
They will form the first installation
of their kind in the world-the first
attempt to illuminate the highways of
the heavens for constant use in the
paramount affairs of man. On nearly
two score sites they will be erected,
mounted on slender, steel-legged
towers, operated by purring electric
motors, automatically moving their
bluewhite shafts of light, silent, alone,
unfailing markers of the aerial road
way that will almost cancel the
thought in Kipling's classic: East s
east and west is west, and ne'er the
twain shall meet"
1t was Kipling, too, who wrote
with the Night Mall" story of just
such an enterprise as the United
States Post Office department is about
to inaugurate And now we have
really reached the era of night mail
within Kiplings own lifetime, so
swiftly do we move in these crowded
years.
The eastern edge Of the darkness
zone" on the transcontinental air mail
route will be Chicago. There a beacon
light of 100000 candle power will
be stationed. At the western bound
airy of the zone, Cheyenne, Wyo., 800
miles away, another of equal inten-
sity will stand guard. Between them
will be three others of this size, at
points where the permanent landing
fields for the night mail are being laid
out-Iowa City, Omaha and North
Platte.
At lesser intervals, every twenty-five
miles, there will be beacons of 5,3OO,-
600 candle power, marking what Will
be known as emergency landing fields.
Install Thirty Light Towers.
These smaller searchlights will be
located at more than thirty places
along the route: Batavia, McGirr,
Franklin Grove, Rock Falls and Cor
dorva, in Illinois; Donahue Dixon,
Moscow, Williamsburg, Reasnor, Car
Isle, Bonneville, Casey, Atlantic, Oak
land and Montezuma, in Iowa; Wahoo,
Garrison, Stromberg, Central, Grand
Central Shelton, Lexington, Gothen-
burg, Paxton, Brule, Chappell, Sidney,
Potter and Kimball, in Nebraska, and
Pine Bluffs, Wyoming.
The combined strength of all these
powerful rays, If united into one great
shaft of brilliance, would be equiva-
lent to the light of not far from two
billion candles-to be exact, l,S00,-
100000,
1t has been generally remarked that
the big lights to be set up at the hve
permanent landing fields-Chicago,
Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte and
Cheyenne-are among the largest man
ufactured. Their rating has been
given at various times as 6OO,OOOOOo
candle power each, but this is in real
ity only theoretical rating, which VIII
not be actually attained at any time
when the lights are in operation. me
rating which indicates what the actual
illumination intensity will be Is an
NJ the (TQn0rAI