Printed and Manuscript Americana

Washington, D.C., June 20, 1925. One-page typed letter on White House stationery bifolium, signed by President Calvin Coolidge to Sacramento Mayor Albert Elkus: "My dear Mr. Mayor: Through the courtesy of Congressman Curry, I have just learned that the transcontinental air mail is to begin a few days hence, making stops regularly at Sacramento. It is a development of the service which is occasion of much satisfaction to everybody concerned, and a new evidence of the practicability and usefulness of this wonderful new facility. I was pleased to learn that you were arranging a civic commemoration of the event in Sacramento, and wish to send my felicitations and congratulations for that occasion. Accordingly, I am writing this letter, to be brought to you by the first air mail that will make the Sacramento stop. Very truly yours, Calvin Coolidge". With original postmarked White House mailing envelope, inscribed on front, "Arrived July 1st/1925 first Airmail service". Letter creased from when folded.

President Coolidge congratulates Sacramento Mayor Albert Elkus on the implementation of regular airmail service to his city, sending this letter on the first regularly scheduled airmail flight there.

Despite being the last President to have never flown in an airplane, President Coolidge was integral in the development of the aviation industry in the United States. In February 1925, he signed into law the Kelly Air Mail Act, which helped created the commercial aviation industry by authorizing the Postmaster General to contract domestic airmail services with private commercial air carriers (out of these domestic air carriers grew United Airlines and American Airlines). In 1926, he signed the Air Commerce Act, a key piece of legislation that established the first national civil aviation policy and established federal oversight of the aviation industry.

Lot includes a typed letter from a Harold J. McCurry of the United States Post Office in Sacramento, to Mayor Elkus, inviting him to Mather Field in Sacramento on July 1, to receive the above letter from President Coolidge upon the plane's arrival.