News
Alberta Aviation Museum receives rare air mail letter

Sept. 22, 2014, Edmonton – Another piece of history has arrived at the Alberta Aviation Museum, but
Executive Director Tom Hinderks says you won’t be able to see the
nearly 100-year-old letter quite yet.

“The first thing we have to do is make sure it’s protected and
conserved properly,” explained Hinderks. “Then it will be evaluated
whether or not it will be replicated for display; or if it will be
displayed at specific times and under what condition.”

Hinderks says the letter was part of the very first air mail delivery
in Western Canada, flown from Calgary to Edmonton on July 9th, 1918, by
Katherine Stinson in an insubstantial wood and fabric aircraft.

“The artifact is a letter from E.L. Richardson of Calgary — a
gentleman who started the Calgary exhibition — to a 10-year-old Duncan
Marshall Jr., who was the son of Duncan Marshall, the Minister of
Agriculture at the time.”

Hinderks says the letter alludes to the fact that air mail was going
to expand across Canada, adding it’s a marvelous story “tying the
technology, the time, and the people together in such a personal way.”

The letter was presented to the Alberta Aviation Museum by Duncan
Marshall, the son of the 10-year-old boy it was originally sent to, in
front of the world’s only replica of Stinson’s aircraft which is on
display at the museum.