[GreenKeys] Giant Concrete Arrows
telegrapher at q.com
telegrapher at q.com
Tue Sep 10 21:55:21 EDT 2013
That sign is on the side of Usery mountain on the NW side of Apache Jct. My brother when stationed at Williams AFB back in the early 1950's helped in the upkeep of it, ie. painting of the rocks if you will. FWIW. It does indeed point to Phoenix and across the top of Falcon Field where they trained British pilots during the war.
There is also an AT&T microwave tower there. You can see the road is labeled "microwave tower road".
Now to find the next one to the east!
Larry
W0OGH
----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Gottlieb <nerd at verizon.net>
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 21:49:40 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Giant Concrete Arrows
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$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>> What are these giant arrows? Some kind of surveying mark? Landing
>> beacons for flying saucers? Earth’s turn signals?
>>
>> cid:004801ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>> No, it's the Transcontinental Air Mail Route .
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> cid:004901ceabf5$b678cb70$82C601F2 at bobd2gjvbg9ycq
>>
>> On August 20, 1920, the United States opened its first coast-to-coast
>> airmail delivery route, just 60 years after the Pony Express closed
>> up shop.
>>
>> There were no good aviation charts in those days, so pilots had to
>> eyeball their way across the country using landmarks. This meant that
>> flying in bad weather was difficult,
>> and night flying was just about impossible.
>>
>> The Postal Service solved the problem with the world’s first
>> ground-based civilian navigation system: a series of lit beacons that
>> would extend from New York to San Francisco . Every ten miles, pilots
>> would pass a bright yellow concrete arrow. Each arrow would be
>> surmounted by a 51-foot steel tower and lit by a million-candlepower
>> rotating beacon. (A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered
>> the beacon.)
>>
>> cid:004a01ceabf5$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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