Aviation Meet souvenir post card
The Evansville (IN) Courier hosted an aviation meet between June 6 - 8, 1912. On each day, Lincoln Beachey and Horace Kearney each flew mail from the fair grounds to a point near Woodmere, a distance of about two miles. Here they dropped the pouches to waiting officials, who took them to the main post office, where the mail was dispatched by regular means.
Officials serviced about 2,500 specially-printed postcards during the three days. They serviced other mail as well. As the postmark contains all three dates and was used all three days of the meet, the only manner of verifying the date flown is by a dated inscription by the sender, and this is not a certainty.
Two special postcards were printed for this event, one of large size and one a normal size postcard, which is the rarer of the two. The first shows a picture of Lincoln Beachey seated in his Curtiss pusher plane, and the second shows a Curtiss seaplane in flight (none such took place at Evansville). This latter card bears the heading, "A Message from the Sky." Both types of cards bear the imprint on the address side "By Aerial Post from the Aviation Circus Evansville, Ind. Under the auspices of the EVANSVILLE COURIER, June 6, 7, and 8, 1912. Mailed in the Air."
The postcard shown here - one of the larger cards - bears the imprint, "BY AERIAL POST FROM THE AVIATION CIRCUS / EVANSVILLE, IND. / Under the Auspices of the 'EVANSVILLE COURIER' / JUNE 6, 7, and 8, 1912." It bears the standard three-date postmark used for the meet, and a wing of the Curtiss plane cancels the two 1-cent Franklin stamps.
