Lincoln Beachey at the Washington County Fairgrounds. (Photo Provided)

In 1912 the idea of flight was still new to most people, including those who lived in Marietta. The idea that man could overcome gravity and fly through the sky was something that most had to see to believe.

Many young pilots earned a good living and increased the popularity of flight by doing demonstration flights around the country.

Flying airmail was an early purpose of flying even if mail was actually in the air for a short hop from one side of town to the other. People could own something that had flown.

An airmail demonstration brought Lincoln Beachey to Marietta in May 1912, just nine years after Ohio brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made their first series of flights.

Beachey and his plane, a Curtiss biplane, did not fly to Marietta, they got here by train. His Curtis biplane had to be reassembled before it could be flown at a meet sponsored by the Marietta Daily Journal. Marietta would later have an airport near where Aldi is today, but at this point on May 15, 1912, the Washington County Fairgrounds would have to do.

Beachey was scheduled to do a series of flights from the fairgrounds on May 15. During the first flight the engine sputtered before the plane settled back on the ground. During the second flight the same thing happened. On the third flight it ran into a fence. Finally on the fourth flight it rose into the air and circled the fairgrounds several times.

The weather the next day was bad, but not bad enough to keep him grounded. He made three flights, including one up the Muskingum Valley. On his third flight he carried what is believed to be Ohio’s first airmail. In a bag he had 1,100 letters and 400 postcards that he planned on dropping near the flagpole in front of the post office. After taking off he flew up the Muskingum River before turning around near Devols dam. He then flew over the grandstands at the fairgrounds filled with people there to see the flying demonstration.

He missed his post office target somewhat, with the bag landing on the lawn of the lock house next door. A photo has circulated for a while of the mail bag dropping. I’m pretty sure that the photo is fake for a couple of reasons. The plane is too far from the post office, the “mail” falling from it would land in the river, not in front of the post office. The image of the plane is a little blurry, which you would expect in a photo of a moving plane in 1912, but the mail bag is crisp, which it would not be in such a photo. The photo was likely made to be sold as a souvenir for those attending the event.

When Beachey flew in Marietta he had been a pilot for two years. He was very much a risk taker, flying under bridges and doing aerobatic maneuvers as he crisscrossed the country demonstration airplanes. It was during such a flight that Beachey died. While flying at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco he had just finished a loop in his plane before putting the plane into a dive. The speed of the plane tore the wings off the airplane and he plunged to his death.

It would be 28 years (May 13, 1940) before airmail became a thing in Marietta, and around a century before most people sent messages across the planet at light-speed via email.

Art Smith is online manager of The Marietta Times and The Parkersburg News and Sentinel, he can be reached at asmith@newsandsentinel.com.