There was a time when a first class postage stamp could be used to send a letter to an address somewhere else in the nation by a system some folks liked to call “snail mail.” If a faster way was desired for the delivery time for a letter, then a special airmail stamp costing a few cents more could be placed on the envelope.

However, an airmail letter sent from an area post office would first be sent from Albert Lea and nearby communities on a railroad train to Minneapolis or Des Moines, Iowa, before it could actually be put on an airplane.

What is considered to be the first dispatch of airmail from Albert Lea with an airplane took place on May 20, 1938. Local pilot Ernest “Ernie” A. Evens left a local airport (pasture) on the T.O. Winjum farm in what’s now the Hammer neighborhood at 9:16 a.m. and arrived in Minneapolis at 10:50 a.m.

This seems to have been a one-time venture and further dispatches of local airmail evidently didn’t take place in the late 1930s.

Back in an era when airmail was the fastest way to send a letter from one part of the nation to another, a major airline firm proposed in late 1941 to provide this service directly to and from Albert Lea.

On Nov. 27, 1941, a representative of Mid-Continent Airlines Inc., of Kansas City, Mo., met with a committee of the Albert Lea Chamber of Commerce to seek local support for the addition of the city to a planned airmail feeder route.

In 1941, Mid-Continent provided passenger and mail service to 19 cities in seven states. The firm had proposed to the federal Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) that airmail service be extended to 138 Midwestern cities.

However, for Albert Lea and the other 137 cities, Mid-Continent didn’t intend to waste time and valuable fuel to land at the small local airports to unload or load the airmail. In time, the airline firm planned to actually land its planes at some of these cities if the airports were expanded and an interest in passenger service was shown. Instead, Mid-Continent intended to provide the airmail service in another way.

Mid-Continent said that under its proposal, airmail destined for the Albert Lea area would be thrown out of the plane as it flew within 25 feet or so of the ground or runway at the airport. The incoming mail would be in a special shock-proof container.

During this same low-flying maneuver at about 150 mph, the outgoing airmail would be picked up or snagged by a boom with a hook extending below the plane. The sack with local airmail would be hanging on a line extending between two 20-foot posts on each side of the runway. A pulley and hydraulic device was supposed to pull the mail bag-up into the plane.

A somewhat similar system was then in use on the railroads for regular mail. As the trains whizzed through the smaller towns, the bagged mail for that locality was thrown out on the depot platform. The outgoing mail bag was hanging on a special post with an arm along side the track. An arm with a hook on the side of a railway mail car would snag the bag and pull it into the car for its initial sorting as one of the clerks prepared to repeat the process at the next town on the route.

The local chamber and civic officials enthusiastically decided to go along with the Mid-Continent proposal and apply pressure on the CAB for an early decision regarding the new airmail plan for Freeborn County. However, within two weeks the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and the nation was at war. Thus, this concept for airmail service for the Albert Lea area never had a chance to take off and fly.

Then, just 60 years ago this month, airmail service and even regular airline passenger service became a reality for the Albert Lea area. This was made possible by Mid-West Airlines of Des Moines Iowa, which had obtained a contract to carry airmail between cities in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. The first flight was scheduled to arrive at the local airport on Thursday, Oct. 20, 1949.

Here’s how the November 1949 issue of The Community Magazine featured this special day on page 19:

“Oct. 21 marked the first flight of mail and passenger airplanes on regular scheduled flights in and out of the Albert Lea Airport. Mid-West Airlines, with headquarters at Des Moines and flying Cessna 190s four-passenger single-engine planes made the first flights on Friday. Bad weather had prevented the flight the previous day. The first flight plane was met with a ceremonial delegation of Albert Lea officials and businessmen headed by Chamber of Commerce president, Lyle Ostrander. Sixteen sacks of philatelic letters, mailed at Albert Lea and from all parts of the country, were put on the first plane and given the special Albert Lea official cachet.

“This mail service with two flights each way each day is speeding airmail from and to this city. With direct air connections with Rochester, Minneapolis, Des Moines and Omaha, it means a letter mailed special delivery airmail on the first morning north flight may be delivered in Chicago that afternoon. This is only an instance of what this type of airmail service means to the community.

“Mid-West Airlines is maintaining a full-time agent in Albert Lea. Paul Kissick has a teletype-equipped office at the airport and will take care of and promote the local business which is expected to grow rapidly.

“The Albert Lea Airport is not all that might be desired. It has no hard surfaced runways and unless the runways are lengthened, the larger planes cannot land here.”

(Those last two sentences reflected the condition of the local airport in late 1949.)

An article in the Oct., 18, 1949, issue of the Tribune said the scheduled flight time between Minneapolis and Omaha, with about a dozen stops, was four hours and 120 minutes, depending on the weather.

This same article gave these examples of fares charged by this airline firm: “To fly from Albert Lea to Minneapolis will cost $8.63, which includes tax. From Austin to Albert Lea will be $2, and from here to Rochester will come to $3.25, plus tax. From Albert Lea to Mason City the fare will be $2.15.”

There’s no indication as to just how long Mid-West Airlines provided airmail and passenger service to and from Albert Lea. There are also no listings for this firm to be found in the 1950 and 1953 city directories.

Through the years the nation’s postal system has sold airmail stamps for this extra service. Albert Lea Postmaster Dixie Bentley said one of these stamps now costs 98 cents.

Bentley also confirmed that mail leaving the Albert Lea area now goes by truck to the mail processing facility in Mankato and from there is dispatched to other destinations in the U.S. or around the world.