Photograph of airmail pilots Edison Mouton and Rexford Levisee
Edison E. Mouton and Rexford Levisee were employed by the US Post Office Department as airmail pilots. They are posed in front of an airmail service biplane at Reno, Nevada. Mouton served as an airmail pilot from September 8, 1920 until May 22, 1927. Levisee served as an airmail pilot from November 9, 1920 to January 14, 1921, and from February 24, 1921 until June 30, 1927. Both pilots were assigned to San Francisco, California, Salt Lake City, Utah, and Reno, Nevada during their careers. On September 11, 1920, Mouton flew the last leg of the nation's first cross-country airmail flight, landing at Marina Field, California after flying the 250 miles from Reno to San Francisco in one hour and fifty-eight minutes, a new flight record for that distance. Levisee came to the Airmail Service from the Army Signal Corps. His most dramatic airmail flight was on June 25, 1927 when he was forced down on the summit of Elko Mountain, 12 miles east of the Elko, Nevada, airmail field. Levisee noted in his report on the crash, "before I knew it, airplane and I were flat on our backs in the Sierras."
National Postal Museum,
Photographer: Unknown
Photographer: Unknown
