Wiley Post - Oklahoma City, Ok
N 35° 36.293 W 097° 29.443
14S E 636708 N 3941173
This historical marker stand near the grave of the pioneer aviator in Memorial Park Cemetery.
Waymark Code: WMABG9
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 12/19/2010
Views: 28
Wiley Post was a pioneer aviator who was the first person to fly solo around the world. He is also credited with discovering the jet stream. He and fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers were killed in a plane crash in Alaska in 1935.
This historical marker is located in Memorial Park Cemetery in Oklahoma City near where Wiley Post is Buried. The text of the marker reads:
WILEY POST
Father of Modern Aviation
1898 – 1935
First to solo around the earth, Discoverer of the Jet Stream, Self-Taught Scientist
Wiley Hardeman Post, born November 22, 1898 in Texas, moved to Oklahoma at an early age. He grew up on the Post family farm near Maysville in southern Oklahoma. When he was 13 he saw his first airplane and dreamed of becoming a pilot.
Pos was a parachute jumper for a barnstorming aerial circus until he accumulated enough money to buy his own airplane. Tragically, he lost his left eye in an oil field accident near Seminole in 1926. The following year he was hired as a company pilot by oil man F. C. Hall of Chickasha. Hall bought a new Lockheed Vega airplane and named it after his daughter, Winnie Mae.
Post and Australian navigator Harold gatty flew around the world in eight days in 1931. After a reception at the White House and ticker-tape parade down Broadway in New York City. Post returned to Oklahoma.
In 1933, Post, with funds contributed by many Oklahomans, became the first person to fly around the world alone. His epic seven day flight was called by Howard Hughes, “the most remarkable flight in history.” Post was greeted by 50,000 people when he arrived back in New York City.
In 1934, with the financial backing of Oklahoma oil pioneer Frank Phillips, Post planned flights to test the “thin air” in the stratosphere above 50,000 feet. Then Winnie Mae, made of plywood, could not be pressurized so Post developed the pressurized flying suit, the forerunner of the modern space suit.
In December, 1934, Post flew into the stratosphere over Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and is credited with discovering the jet stream.
On August 15, 1935, Post and his fellow Oklahoman Will Rogers were killed when Post’s Orion-Explorer crashed on takeoff from a remoter Eskimo fishing village near Point Barrow, Alaska.
Post’s funeral at First Baptist Church in downtown Oklahoma City was the largest in state history. The final resting place of Wiley Post is a few feet east of this monument.
County: Oklahoma
Record Address::
13400 North Kelly Ave.
Oklahoma City, OK United States
73131
Web site if available: [Web Link]
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Date Erected: Not listed
Sponsor (Who put it there): Not listed
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