Surviving Airway Beacons

Beginning in 1923, the U.S. Post Office worked to complete a transcontinental airway of beacons on towers spaced 15 to 25 miles apart, each with enough brightness, or candlepower, to be seen for 40 miles in clear weather. On 1 July, 1924, postal authorities began regularly scheduled night operations over parts of this route. In 1926, the Aeronautics Branch of the Department of Commerce took over responsibility for building lighted airways. By June, 1927, 4,121 miles of airways had lights. By 1933, 18,000 miles of airway and 1,500 beacons were in place.

Each beacon tower had site numbers painted on it for daytime identification. At night, the beacons flashed in a certain sequence so that pilots could match their location to the printed guide that they carried. Besides the rotating beacon, one fixed tower light pointed to the next field and one to the previous tower, forming an aerial roadway. Official and emergency fields were lit with green lights while dangerous fields were marked with red.

The rotating beacons were mounted on 70-foot towers and could be seen by pilots up to 40 miles in good visibility. On the same platform were two stationary course lights, one pointing forward and the other backward along the airway. These were 500-watt lamps that projected a beam of 100,000 candlepower and fitted with red or green lenses.

Because of this effort, airmail and later, airline pilots, were able to navigate the skies across the nation in relative safety.

Today, sadly, only a handful of these beacons survive -- very few are still in their original locations. Most are now in museums. If anyone has photographs and/or information of other surviving beacons, please contact me.

Smithsonian Institution Beacons
The Smithsonian has two airway beacons on display. One is located in the Transportation Gallery in the Air & Space Museum on the Mall in Washington, DC. The other is located in the National Postal Museum. Both of these are displayed with only the beacon themselves mounted on reduced-size towers.

Creswell Butte Beacon
This restored airway beacon tower once sat on Creswell Butte, Oregon as part of an airway that included beacons located in Creswell, Kelly Butte in Springfield and on Stage Gulch, near Glendale, Oregon. The air space between Roseburg and Redding was considered the area's most dangerous. Today, the tower is on display at the Oregon Aviation History Center on Jim Wright Field at Cottage Grove, Oregon.

Horlick Racine Airport Beacon
This beacon is on display at the EAA museum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. The Horlick Racine beacon was commissioned in 1929 and in 1941, it became an airport beacon at the Horlick-Racine Airport.

Indian Mounds Park Beacon
The Mounds Park beacon was part of the system that defined the route between St. Paul and Chicago. It was designed by the City of St. Paul's Bureau of Bridges and built by the St. Paul Structural Steel Co. During a refurbishing in 1994-95, the tower's original black and chrome-yellow color scheme was restored.

Bundaberg, Queensland (Australia) Beacon
Rotating airway beacons were also used in other countries. This rotating beacon was installed along the Perth to Adelaide airway.

While most of the beacons have disappeared, in some places you can still find the foundations and/or the concrete "arrows" that pointed towards the next beacon along the airway.

Summit Radio Beacon (or Beacon Hill light), Wyoming.
This beacon site was located 1 1/2 miles north of Lincoln Monument, WY.
Elevation 8,777 feet, coordinates 41° 16' 5" N, 105° 26' 2" W

Section 33 Radio Beacon, Wyoming
All that remains of the old Section 33 beacon site
This site is located about 3/4 mile north of McIntyre's, WY
Elevation 7,528 feet, coordinates 41° 13" 34" N, 105° 14' 36" W