When United States Post Office planes took to the skies in the 1920s, they had their own version of the roadway’s yellow line. A series of giant concrete arrows and gaslight beacons helped point the ...

In the 1920s, the U.S. Post Office began experimenting with cross-country delivery of mail by air. Before the advent of radio guidance, mail pilots picked their way along from visible landmark to ...

Get full access to The Daily Beast for $1 Ever wandered across a giant concrete arrow in the desert? You’re not hallucinating. In the early days of airmail, a system of coast-to-coast arrows pointed ...

To combat these challenges, postal officials arranged for acetylene gas beacons installed every three miles along airmail routes. These beacons could be seen for up to 10 miles, and were also used to ...

WALNUT CREEK — It was 1944, and Carol Eisenman Clark clearly remembers the beam from the Acalanes Ridge beacon a mile or so away lighting up her bedroom below. It was a reassuring presence for a ...

There is no harbinger in America, a huge arrow lies on the ground, and there are things that are connected to the earth in some places rather than in one place. It is clearly hard to see as a traffic ...

WALNUT CREEK — It was 1944, and Carol Eisenman Clark clearly remembers the beam from the Acalanes Ridge beacon a mile or so away lighting up her bedroom below. It was a reassuring presence for a ...

WALNUT CREEK — It was 1944, and Carol Eisenman Clark clearly remembers the beam from the Acalanes Ridge beacon a mile or so away lighting up her bedroom below. It was a reassuring presence for a ...

All traces of the beacon and its tower, save some steel mounting braces, are long gone. But a large concrete double arrow, now covered by graffiti and offering no clue to its onetime purpose, still ...