Today in 1911, Fred Wiseman delivered the first mail flown by an airplane. It took him two days to fly from Petaloma to Santa Rosa, California (which he never reached with his home-built airplane), carrying three letters from the mayor and other town leaders and copies of the local newspaper, the “Press-Democrat.”

One of the letters was from John E. Olmstead, Petaluma’s postmaster, to Santa Rosa postmaster, Hiram L. Tripp. The letter read:

Dear Sir and Friend, Petaluma sends, via the air route, congratulations and felicitations upon the successful mastery of the air by a Sonoma County boy in an aeroairplane conceived by Sonoma County brains and erected by Sonoma County workmen. Speed the day when the U.S. Mail between our sister cities, of which this letter is the pioneer, may all leave by the air route with speed and safety.

Fred Wiseman flying his aircraft at a fair in May 1911