The Mystery of Antelope Island’s Airway Beacons
By Justina Parsons-Bernstein, PhD
Heritage and Interpretation Resources Manager
Utah State Parks
In what is credited as the first successful airplane flight, Wilbur and Orville Wright’s engine-powered aircraft flew 852 feet over a field near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. The plane remained aloft for 29 seconds. As airplanes and flight durations improved over the next few years, politicians, entrepreneurs, and the United States Postal Service saw the possibility of using the new invention to speed up mail delivery across the country.
The U.S. Postal Service completed a transcontinental airmail route from New York City to San Francisco on September 8, 1920. Because of visibility and safety concerns, planes only flew during the day. To aid in faster coast to coast mail delivery, government officials ordered the placement of lighted wayfinding beacons along the coast-to-coast airway.
Crews completed the beacon project in January 1929. By flying night and day, eastbound airmail could be sent from San Francisco and arrive in New York 29 hours later. This was two days faster than mail carried across the country by train.
Spur airmail routes sprouted off the transcontinental line. Salt Lake became a mail hub for a few different routes coming from San Francisco and Los Angeles headed to New York, Montana, and Washington. By 1927, airway beacon(s) had been placed on Antelope Island to help guide pilots who flew the airmail route from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Pasco, Washington.
There is conflicting information about the number and placement of airway beacons on Antelope Island. In this 1932 U.S. Aircorps Aeronautical Section Map, two airway beacons are shown within the Island’s boundaries. The larger star with the arrows denotes a rotating airway beacon supposedly positioned just north of Fielding Garr Ranch. The smaller solid red star symbolizes an auxiliary flashing airway beacon located midway between Lady Finger Point and Buffalo Point above Bridger Bay.
Now here comes the mystery, neither of these sites are where the remnants of the known airway beacon on the Island resided!
The physical remains of an airway beacon tower, generator shack, and emergency shelter shack are atop the topographic feature known as, for obvious reasons, Beacon Knob.
This Google Earth image shows the precise location of the site where the known airway beacon was located on the northeast part of the Island.
Staff have conducted several surveys of the Beacon Knob site. Here is a photo from a March 2022 survey showing the wind-toppled remains of the generator shack, the still-standing emergency shelter, and a newer Davis County communications compound.
The photos below show parts of the concrete footings to which the airway beacon tower was attached with bolts.
Utah State Parks staff are currently conducting research about Antelope Island’s airway beacons so they can place interpretive signage at the Beacon Knob site. Stay tuned to see if they can solve the mysteries involved with the actual number and placement of beacons on the Island.
