1926, News Miner. A sampling (value of contract not listed):
Bethel to McGrath—Wallace Langley
Bethel to Quinhagak—Charles E. Jacobson
Bettles to Wiseman—Sam Dubin
Candle to Keewalik—Herbert Greenberg
Chatanika to Circle—Henry Robson
Chicken to St. Timothy—R. C. Mitchell
Circle via Fort Yukon to Beaver—Northern Commercial Company
Circle to Miller House—John Palm
A dog team of about twenty animals used by a mail team driver. Winter mail was hauled by dog teams in mainland Alaska from the 1800s until airplanes took over mostly by the late 1930s. This photo was probably taken at Nenana. Commonly, such a team pulled two heavily loaded sleds hooked together. Once airplanes became established, winter mail could be flown more economically than hauled by dog teams.
Within a few years the airplane forced many of the enterprises involved with dog teams out of business, but not without a struggle. As airplanes challenged, a notice posted outside one roadhouse read, “Drunks, Indians, and Airplane Pilots not Welcome Here.” The airplane changed life in Alaska in many ways, and much of the change took place within ten or fifteen years. Those whose livelihoods were displaced generally didn’t like pilots.
That fall of 1923 Eielson traveled to Washington D. C. attempting to obtain a contract to fly mail from Fairbanks to McGrath. He visited Post Office officials and pitched his proposal. He reminded authorities of his February airmail flight to Nenana. He was a handsome young man, full of enthusiasm, and persuasive, and he had flown as an Army pilot, which was all a plus. Alaska was a complete unknown to the bureaucrats he approached. They probably regarded Eielson as a strange bird.
McGrath lies at the confluence of the Takotna and Kuskokwim Rivers, and is a center for gold mining, trapping, and freighting. It is a transfer point for freight bound for the upper Kuskokwim River; here larger river boats and tugs with barges transfer freight to smaller vessels better adapted to the upper reaches of the winding river.
Flying the mail was relatively new in the United States, although it was common in Europe.3
AN AIRMAIL CONTRACT
Dan Sutherland, Alaska’s Delegate to Congress, had been promoting air mail service for the Territory for three years. Eielson’s pitch and Sutherland’s pressure worked, for in December, 1923, the Postal Service announced a contract would be let to the Farthest-North Airplane Company (Eielson, W.F. Thompson, and Dick Wood) for an experimental aeroplane service for the 230 miles between Nenana, on the Alaska Railroad, and McGrath, on the Kuskokwim River.
The route crossed the Kantishna gold mining and fur trapping country, with stops at Ophir, Takotna, Iditarod, and Flat City. Winter dog team mail service was to continue during the airmail flights. Ben Eielson was to pilot a DeHavilland DH-4BM biplane loaner4 from the Postal Service, with a 440-hp Liberty engine. It included special equipment for cold weather operation.
Skis and a spare motor were included with the crated DH-4 shipped to Fairbanks. It arrived via the Alaska Railroad on January 23, 1924. The three huge crates were hauled from the rail depot by a horse-drawn sled to the Northern Commercial Company machine shop for assembly by Eielson and mechanic Frank McCafferty.
Assembled except for wings and empennage (tail feathers), on skis, with a dog sled under the tail, the fuselage was pulled by a horse from the machine shop to an unfinished hangar at Rickert’s field. Here the wings, tail ski, and empennage were attached.
Eielson was to make ten round-trip trial flights between Nenana and McGrath. Payment was to be two dollars a mile for the first five round trips, and a dollar fifty for the remaining five trips. That was less than half what the dog team musher with the mail contract received.
Instead of starting his flights at Nenana, Eielson based himself at Fairbanks with its better machine shop and other facilities. This added fifty miles to the one-way distance to McGrath.
FIRST MAIL FLIGHT TO McGRATH
It was -5 F. on February 21, 1924, at Week’s Field when, at 8:45 a.m, Eielson, with 164 pounds of mail in the enclosed front cockpit, gave full throttle to the Liberty engine of the DeHavilland, and roared down the 900-feet-long runway to climb into the sky on his first mail flight to McGrath. The big wood prop created such a blizzard of snow that the airplane wasn’t visible to onlookers until it climbed free of the ground.
Ben Eielson in the cockpit of the DeHavilland D4 in which he flew the first mail flight from Fairbanks to McGrath on February 21, 1924. Eielson was the first to fly scheduled mail runs in Alaska in a trial effort by the Post Office Department.
The compass of Ben’s DeHavilland was forty degrees off. The airspeed indicator was inoperative, and the tachometer worked intermittently. He ignored these problems and flew on.
He was heavily bundled in layers of wool and fur, and carried emergency gear of snowshoes, a mountain sheepskin sleeping bag, ten days provisions, axe, gun, and tools for working on the plane.
Ben followed the Tanana River to Nenana and from there followed the dog team trail southwest. He peered down trying to spot the roadhouses and their smoke every thirty miles or so. Reaching the winding Kuskokwim River, he followed it to McGrath and landed on the Takotna River where it poured into the Kuskokwim. The flight lasted two hours and fifty minutes.
A dog team hauled the mail to the McGrath post office. Sixty pounds of mail was returned to the plane in the dog sled for the return trip. The plane was refueled and oil added to the engine.
Eielson had planned a quick turn-around, expecting to land at Fairbanks by dusk at around 5 p.m., but McGrath locals insisted on a celebratory banquet, which delayed his departure until 2:35 p.m.
As dark fell he was about half way to Fairbanks and above nine-mile-long Lake Minchumina. He continued with the same heading. When he thought he should be in the vicinity of Nenana he could see no lights. He circled, peering for lights. He homed on a light at a cabin, and when it was beneath him he realized it was in a remote area.
For an hour he was lost in the dark. Dense clouds concealed the stars; it was black dark. Only the snow-covered land gave Ben some idea of the lay of the land below. He grimly flew on, carefully searching for lights. A glimmer anywhere would do at this stage. He was going to have to land soon. Gas was running low.
He came to a large river, followed it, saw a flare in the distance, flew to it, and discovered with great relief it was a bonfire for his benefit in front of the Rickert’s Field hangar.
He was unable to see the edge of the landing field, for it was 6:45 p. m. and full dark as he glided for a landing. Missing the edge of the field, he struck a tree and one of the plane’s skis broke off. The plane nosed over when it hit the ground, and as the waiting crowd watched, the propeller broke.
Fairbanksans proudly presented Eielson with a gold watch, inscribed, “C.B. Eielson—Pioneer Alaska
