Maysville, Oklahoma is well known as the place I grew up of course, but it’s also the place Wiley Post grew up. Anyone aware of early aviation history knows about Wiley Post. If you’ve visited the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian, you’ve probably seen his airplane, the Winnie Mae, on display. That’s the plane he flew solo around the world.
Wiley Post was born in Grand Saline, Texas where his father was a cotton farmer. The family moved to Oklahoma when Wiley was five and settled on a farm near Maysville. His first view of an aircraft in flight was at the county fair in Lawton, Oklahoma in 1913. He enrolled in the Sweeney Automobile and Aviation School in Kansas City and became a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service in World War I. His training took place at the University of Oklahoma where he learned radio technology. The war ended before he completed his training and he worked as a “roughneck” in the Oklahoma oilfields. The work was unsteady and he turned to car jacking. He was arrested in 1921 and sent to the Oklahoma State Reformatory where he served 14 months of a ten-year sentence.
His aviation career began as a parachutist for a flying circus and he became well known on the barnstorming circuit. In 1926 he lost his left eye in an oil field accident and he used the settlement money to buy his first airplane. He met fellow Okie Will Rogers when he flew Rogers to a Rodeo. The two became good friends.
In August of 1935, Post and Will Rogers set out to tour Alaska and Siberia – via air. The plane crashed on takeoff from Barrow, Alaska, killing both men.
So why this discussion now? Eighty years ago this month, Wiley Post became the first man to fly solo around the world. Post took off on July 15, 1933 from an airstrip on Floyd Bennet Field in New York. Seven days, 18 hours, and 49 1/2 minutes later, he landed at Floyd Bennet Field, after circling the globe. Another solo flight around the world wouldn’t be accomplished until 1947.
The airport in Oklahoma City is named “Will Rogers World Airport,” and the secondary Oklahoma City airport is named “Wiley Post Airport” and is located on the north side of Oklahoma City — almost within walking distance of my sister’s house.
Maysville has honored Post by naming the high school auditorium The Wiley Post Auditorium.
As I mentioned, if you visit the the Smithsonian, you can see the airplane used for the solo flight – named the Winnie Mae (after the daughter of an Oklahoma oilman that originally purchased the plane) on display. The plane was purchased from Wiley Post’s widow for $25,000. Congress authorized the purchase just nine days after the crash in Alaska.
So next time you see Maysville, Oklahoma in the news, just remember that I’m not the only one that put it on the map — give Wiley a little credit too….
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