Aviation meet post card
Upon completion of activities at Cicero, the aviators moved to Grant Park, near Chicago's waterfront. The Aero Club of Illinois sponsored this meet. Chicago Postmaster General G. G. Thompson had approved the meet. Aviators Max Lillie, DeLloyd Thompson, Farnum T. Fish, Horace Kearney, and Marcel Tournier acted as aerial postmen. Souvenir postcards were sold at the airfield.
No flights took place at Grant Park on September 16 because most aviators were setting-up their operations. Between September 19-22, mail was flown. A circular "AERIAL MAIL" cachet was applied to mail prior to the flight; after the flight, which was just around the field, officials carried the mail to the Chicago Post Office, where it entered the regular mailstream.
A few examples with all the proper markings are known postmarked September 23. Whether these items were flown on September 22 and held over for postmarking on the next day is unknown. They might also have been pieces "received late" and never flown at all.
The example shown here has the circular cachet but no datestamp. It is addressed to Miss Nellie Barker, a 27-year old artist living with her mother in Ford City, Pennsylvania.
