“A dramatic era in transportation was born.”
And if you keep reading after that it is worth it:
We took my mother-in-law back to the airport for her flight home yesterday. I saw that plaque and the propeller reproduction above it. I’ll give you two guesses which one I saw first.
But think of that, in 1929, the trip across the country was cut from four days to less than two. I know people who were alive then. I wonder if it seemed like a wonder to their contemporaries. Ahh, this is what it was like.
Think of it as they did. It would take between four to six months to ride a horse from coast to coast — depending on your circumstance, and that’s if you knew the proper route. And then along came the transcontinental railroad.
So anytime before 1869 it was months. When the transcontinental railroad was completed you could be on the other coast in three-and-a-half days. And then, just sixty years later, less than two days. Today, of course, you can fly from New York to Los Angeles in five hours. A bit less if the jet stream doesn’t interfere. But to take trains and planes in 1929, and be on the west coast in two days, man what a marvel.
Alas, the Transcontinental Air Transport, built by “the father of commercial aviation in America” Clement Melville Keys, was hit by the Depression, lower-than-expected demand, political manueverings and one high profile air tragedy. They lasted less than a year and would get bought and gobbled up in a series of mergers.
Today, you can watch an entire loop around the country in five minutes. I wonder what Keys — a teacher, a journalist, a business man and, finally, an aviation mogul — would think of that?
For alternatives, you could do it, today, on a bike in about two months. The fastest walk across the country was in the 1980s, at 60 days. The fastest run shaves 18 days off that time.
You can still take Amtrak over a four-day journey and, if you refused to be impressed like the person that wrote this, it is just the worst thing in the world, gah.
