ADVENTURE: Gazette reporter sent via airmail from New York to San Francisco; 1921 firsthand account with blizzards, desert crash

From January 15, 1921 (Cedar Rapids) Evening Gazette:

Gazette Man Flies With Air Mail From Coast to CoastYou've Wondered What Happens to That Letter You Send by Air Post-Reporter Goldstrom Tells YouGales, Blizzards, Hurricanes and Sandstorm Battle Newspaper Man On Trip-Wrecked In DesertBY JOHN GOLDSTROMSAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Jan. 15.-I've just been delivered by air mail from New York to San Francisco.I'm the first human missive to be carried from coast to coast by the mail planes.The Gazette mailed me so I could study firsthand the practical workings, the perils and the prospects of the air mail service.If you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have sent letters by air mail in the past year, you've probably wondered, as you dropped your mail in the box:"How much quicker will it be delivered?""Will it be delivered at all?"Speed and safety-these are the goals of the air mail service.You're justified in questioning, as you gaze upward at the mail planes, whether either goal has been attained.Neither has yet-in the coast to coast service!Just imagine you are one of the 16,000 other letters leaving New York with me, on my 14-day journey.We are in for sky-sickness, below-zero cold, forced landings, blizzard, damaged planes, shipwreck; being lost in a desert sandstorm, 17 hours on the desert without a drop of water, being given up for dead! ...[

You've Wondered What Happens to That Letter You Send by Air Post-Reporter Goldstrom Tells You

Gales, Blizzards, Hurricanes and Sandstorm Battle Newspaper Man On Trip-Wrecked In Desert

BY JOHN GOLDSTROM

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal., Jan. 15.-I've just been delivered by air mail from New York to San Francisco.

I'm the first human missive to be carried from coast to coast by the mail planes.

The Gazette mailed me so I could study firsthand the practical workings, the perils and the prospects of the air mail service.

If you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have sent letters by air mail in the past year, you've probably wondered, as you dropped your mail in the box:

"How much quicker will it be delivered?"

"Will it be delivered at all?"

Speed and safety-these are the goals of the air mail service.

You're justified in questioning, as you gaze upward at the mail planes, whether either goal has been attained.

Neither has yet-in the coast to coast service!

Just imagine you are one of the 16,000 other letters leaving New York with me, on my 14-day journey.

We are in for sky-sickness, below-zero cold, forced landings, blizzard, damaged planes, shipwreck; being lost in a desert sandstorm, 17 hours on the desert without a drop of water, being given up for dead! ...

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