Archives West Finding Aid

Stanhope S. Boggs was an American Air Mail Service Pilot who served from 1920 to 1927. Boggs was a graduate of the School of Military Aeronautics at the University of California at Berkley. He flew forest patrol during World War I. After the war, he joined the Air Mail Service, flying all over the country. He was the first person to fly the mail over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, flying from San Francisco to Elko and back, with stops in Reno. On January 4, 1921, Stanhope survived one of the early crashes of the Air Mail Service. He was flying out of San Francisco at 2,000 feet when his engine quit. He had to go into a flat glide and broke out of the covering fog at only 50 feet over the city of San Francisco. He tried to set the airplane down on Gough Street in the block between Hay and Fell streets. As he was landing, he hit some trolley wires and nosed into the ground. The airplane was destroyed by a post-crash fire, but Boggs was unhurt. He was able to save half of the 270-pound mail cargo load. On February 7, 1921, Boggs set a record of one hour and nineteen minutes flying from San Francisco to Reno. He took his last flight for the Air Mail Service on March 19, 1921, before becoming a superintendent with the service. By 1930, Boggs had earned reclassification as an airways engineer. He became the assistant manager of the Sixth Air Navigation District, a branch of the Civil Aeronautics Authority (later to become the Federal Aviation Administration) and continued to work for the Federal Aviation Administration until his retirement from federal service.