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Yup, that's what it was called, 'Bryan Air Mail Field'. Pretty much a single purpose. Surprisingly, it's still a field, as is it's replacement a mile & 1/2 north (2.4 k). Here's the history:
Here, on September 6, 1918, Bryans' Air Mail Field began oeprations as one of Ohio's first official airfields ith the arrival of a survey flight to establish air mail service between New York and Chicago. Scheduled servcie began on July 1, 1919, and stretched west to San Francisco on September 8, 1920, completing the 2,666 mile U.S. transcontinental air mail route. Flying the Curtiss JN-4H "Jenny." R-4. Standard JR-1B, and later the De Havilland DH-4, aviators pioneered cross continental flight in open cockpit biplanes without radios or electronic navigational aids and reduced coast to coast mail delivery from 87 hours by rail to 33 hours by air.
Air Mail Field was relocated 1.5 morth of this site on July 1, 1924, in preprartion for overnight mail service and the first scheduled night flights through Bryan, July 1, 1925. By May 1926,more efficient air mail planes began to overfly Bryan and Air Mail Field was reduced to serving as an emergency landign site. On September 1, 1927, the Post Office Department relinquished control of the transcontinental route to private contractors and Bryan's role in air mail service officially ended. Air Mail Field and the aeropost flights became a part of aviation's heritage, having performed vital roles in the advancement of air commerce as well as charting a course for the future of global air transportation.
Ohio Historical Marker 2002
Written Nov 7, 2007
Address: North Main Street
Website: www.cityofbryan.com/
I made a special trip to stop and find this location. Turns out to be the Amtrak Station, but it was interesting.
In 1966 the New York Central railroad Company (A.E. Perlman, President) proposed a test of existing rail passenger equipment to determine the feasibility of operating high-speed passenger service between cities up to 300 mils apart. The site chosen for the test was near Bryan, Ohio on the longest multiple track straight railroad line int eh world. This sixtey-seven mile straight trackage from Toledo, Ohio to Butler, Indiana was originally constructed by the Northern Indiana Railroad Company of Ohio incorporated March 3, 1851. On July 23, 1966 the New York Central Technical research Department ran teh Budd RDC-3 passenger car number M-497 fully instrumented for stress analysis, and propelled by two roof-mounted jet aircraft engines. The speed of 183.85 miles per hour was attained, the highest recorded on a railroad in North America at that time and to this day.
Written Nov 7, 2007
Address: Paige Street near N Lynn Street
Website: www.cityofbryan.com/
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This is way off the beaten track from Toledo. But it is worth the day if you go. Sauder village is a step back in time and a chance to see life in the 19th century, before electricity and electronics changed the world. You'll find more than a days worth of things to do, including some farm style cooking.
Located west of Wauseon on Ohio 2 (60 miles from Toledo). You'll have a drive in the country and a chance to see early american lifestyles. For details, see my Wauseon page or my Sauder Village travellogue
Written Nov 7, 2007
Phone: 800-590-9755
Website: www.saudervillage.org
I'd been through the Black Swamp a dozen times and never new it. Most traverse the swamp further east than Bryan. Most likely, you've been there if you took US 20 south of Toledo or followed the Maumee River south from Toledo. Today, it's farmland, but in the early years, 2 miles of travel was a wearisome journey.
"The landscape of northwest Ohio was formed by melting ice and glacial lakes left behind in its wake. because of the low gradient (3 feet fall per mile)to the northeast, the flat lacutrine plain evolved into a large swamp. A massive swamp forest with huge hardwoods, broken only sporadically with intermittent wet prairies and savannahs, dominated the landscape. Both prehistoric and historic Indians farmed the flood plains of the Maumee River and its tributaries: Auglaize, Tiffin, and Blanchard rivers.
The geography of hte swamp retarded major setttlement up to the Civil war. The 1859 Ohio Ditch Law, a harbinger of drainage legislation nationally, created a cooperative system for individuals to petition county governmetn to surface drain the ara. Simultaneous to the surface drainage projects, a massive effort was underway timbering the former swamp forest. Virgin timber for the fleets of America and Europe, grade lumber for the farms and the emerging cities of the area, stave wood for the barrel and stave mills, and the left-over slabwood to fuel the hundreds of clay tile mill kilns dotting the counties of the swamp nearly denuded the landscape of these giant trees. The family-owned clay tile mills allowed under-drainage to transform the swamp into Ohio's most contiguously farmed and productive region..
For more details, see Wikipedia, it's very informative
Written Nov 7, 2007
Website: www.blackswamp.org/
Located north of Bryan in the town of Montpelier is the home of Paul Siple. I heard about him from my dad. I never knew he was from Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout that was chosen by Admiral Richard E. Bryd to participate in Byrd's 1st Antarctic Expedition in 1927. Siple went on to become a noted explorer, writer and scientist. He coined the term 'windchill'.
Located on S Empire Street, it's 4 blocks south of Main Street (OH 107).
Updated Nov 7, 2007
Website: www.south-pole.com/p0000111.htm
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Hey, it was there. When I was in Bryan, I saw the blimp. Don't know what they were doing, but it was a pleasant surprise.
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