
Giant Concrete Arrows That Point Your Way Across America (2013) - denzell
http://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2013-06-17/transcontinental-air-mail-route-maphead-ken-jennings
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ag80
A much better writeup is here: [http://sometimes-
interesting.com/2013/12/04/concrete-arrows-...](http://sometimes-
interesting.com/2013/12/04/concrete-arrows-and-the-u-s-airmail-beacon-system/)

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drzaiusapelord
>A generator shed at the tail of each arrow powered the beacon

And who were the poor souls that had to drive up to these generators and fill
them with diesel every so often? These things couldn't have been off major
roads so I imagine this meant a lot of off-road driving. Considering this
spanned the nation, the number of staff involved in just keeping the lights on
must have been significant.

The article is probably wrong about this replacing the Pony Express. By the
1920s long distance mail was sent via train. I can't imagine the post office
still using horses for long hauls.

Wikipedia has more info:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Airway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcontinental_Airway_System)

>The beacons flashed identification numbers in Morse code. The sequence was
"WUVHRKDBGM" prompting the training phrase "When Undertaking Very Hard Routes
Keep Directions By Good Methods." to remember the sequence

I find this part fascinating. More info here:

[http://everything2.com/title/WUVHRKDBGM](http://everything2.com/title/WUVHRKDBGM)

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stonogo
The 'poor souls' were given a house to live in near the signal tower. There
were just under three hundred of these beacons; lots of them ran off of grid
power. almost all The article does not claim this replaced the Pony Express.
It mentions the Pony Express to highlight the fact that a mere 60 years
separated mail-on-horseback and mail-on-airplane.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Wikipedia and other articles claim they were all generator powered. There was
no 'grid' in those areas at the time.

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kbenson
Relatedly (and including this article in the comments), there was a submission
yesterday about the giant X's in the desert[1].

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12695179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12695179)

