[GreenKeys] Giant Concrete Arrows

Tue Sep 10 21:49:40 EDT 2013

Here it is in Google Maps:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Usery+Pass+Rd,+Mesa,+AZ&hl=en&ll=33.492019,-111.629323&spn=0.003199,0.005965&sll=33.922851,-112.563171&sspn=0.814764,1.5271&oq=usery+pass+rd&t=h&hnear=Usery+Pass+Rd,+Mesa,+Maricopa,+Arizona&z=18

I actually kind of like it.

On 9/10/2013 9:41 PM, gil at baudot.net wrote:
> This is a bit later in time I think, but was for aviation too (still looks 
> good today):
>
> http://joeorman.shutterace.com/Bizarre/Bizarre_Phoenixsign.html
>
>
> gil smith
> greenkeys moderator
> gil at baudot.net <mailto:gil at baudot.net>
>
>
>     -------- Original Message --------
>     Subject: [GreenKeys] Giant Concrete Arrows
>     From: "Norm" <normand3 at q.com <mailto:normand3 at q.com>>
>     Date: Tue, September 10, 2013 12:32 am
>     To: <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net <mailto:greenkeys at mailman.qth.net>>
>
>     I know this has nothing to to do with TTY, but its in the same era, and
>     maybe in the first picture those light poles use to be telegraph poles,
>     but I thought it was interesting story.
>     By the way, has anybody ever seen these arrows?
>     Norm
>     WB7WEQ
>>
>>             *Giant concrete arrows that point the way across America .
>>
>>             * 
>>             cid:004601ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>             Every so often, usually in the vast deserts of the American
>>             Southwest, a hiker or a backpacker will run across something
>>             puzzling: a large concrete arrow, as much as seventy feet in
>>             length, sitting in the middle of scrub-covered nowhere.
>>
>>             cid:004701ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>             What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark? Landing
>>             beacons for flying saucers? Earthâ€™s turn signals?
>>
>>             cid:004801ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>             No, it's the Transcontinental Air Mail Route .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>         cid:004901ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>         On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast
>>         airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed
>>         up shop.
>>
>>         There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had to
>>         eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that
>>         flying in bad weather was difficult,
>>         and night flying was just about impossible.
>>
>>         The Postal Service solved the problem with the worldâ€™s first
>>         ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that
>>         would extend from New York to San Francisco . Every ten miles, pilots
>>         would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would be
>>         surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower
>>         rotating beacon. (A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered
>>         the beacon.)
>>
>>         cid:004a01ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>         Now mail could get from the Atlantic to the Pacific not in a matter
>>         of weeks, but in just 30 hours or so.
>>
>>         Even the dumbest of air mail pilots, it seems, could follow a series
>>         of bright yellow arrows straight out of a Tex Avery cartoon. By 1924,
>>         just a year after Congress funded it, the line of giant concrete
>>         markers stretched from Rock Springs , Wyoming to Cleveland , Ohio .
>>         The next summer, it reached all the way to New York , and by 1929 it
>>         spanned the continent uninterrupted, the envy of postal systems
>>         worldwide.
>>
>>         cid:004b01ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>>         Radio and radar are, of course, infinitely less cool than a concrete
>>         Yellow Brick Road from sea to shining sea, but I think we all know
>>         how this story ends. 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. But the hundreds of arrows remain.
>>         Their yellow paint is gone, their concrete cracks a little more with
>>         every winter frost, and no one crosses their path much, except for
>>         coyotes and tumbleweeds.
>>
>>         But, they're still there
>>
>>
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