Airmail to Madera was not exactly a new thing. In 1912, the city was the recipient of the nation’s first airmail delivery when Glen Martin zoomed over the city and dropped a bundle of newspapers from the sky onto Yosemite Avenue. Airmail never left Madera, however, until Postmaster Murphy decided to change that in 1938. In this photograph taken on May 19, Murphy hands a sack of mail over to pilot Pete Schmidt while Madera Tribune reporter Winifred Peck looks on. With Ms. Peck as a passenger, Schmidt took off from what is now Lion’s Town and County Park on Howard Road headed for Fresno. (Madera Images; Bill Coate)
The 1930s were propitious times for the U.S. Postal Service in Madera and for Postmaster E.V. Murphy. It was under his tenure as chief of Madera’s postal operations that a new post office was built on the corner of Sixth and D Streets, and the first shipment of airmail from Madera was made. Shown here in 1938, are City Councilman Irvine Schnoor, Mayor John Gordon, Murphy, pilot Pete Schmidt, Councilman John Wesley Smith, Councilman Matt Davis, and Fire Chief John Brammer. (Madera Images; Bill Coate)
