Montesano’s own Reuben Fleet will be posthumously recognized this month by the United States Postal Service.

Fleet was born in 1887 in Montesano and went on to establish the first scheduled U. S. Air Mail schedule between New York and Washington, D. C., in May 1918.

The momentous achievement will be commemorated in a couple of ways next month. First, the United States Postal Service will dedicate a pair of stamps on May 1. Then, a trio of vintage planes will journey along the West Coast to recreate the coast’s first Air Mail service.

The stamps will be issued in red and blue. Both stamps will feature a Curtis JN-4H biplane, an aircraft used during those first days of Air Mail service, according to the Postal Service website. The blue stamp commemorates the pilots, while the red stamp commemorates the milestone that was the Air Mail route. The biplane also was featured on stamps issued in 1918 to commemorate the flight.

May 13 to 18, three vintage biplanes will retrace the first Air Mail route on the West Coast, Contract Air Mail 8 (CAM 8). They depart from San Diego, Calif., and land at Paine Field in Everett. Stops along the way include Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Fresno, San Francisco and Redding, all in California, Eugene, Ore., and Vancouver and Olympia.

For more information, go online to www.cam82018.com.

Reuben Fleet’s father, David Fleet, was city engineer of Montesano and county auditor.

The Fleets are the namesake of Fleet Park near downtown, fittingly situated across the street from the Montesano Post Office. The park was donated to the City of Montesano by Reuben Fleet and his sister E. K. Bishop.

The park dedication was reported by The Vidette on August 29, 1946:

“As if to bless the occasion, clouds suddenly parted and the sun beamed fondly down upon the huge crowd of folks of Montesano, and of surrounding areas, and Aberdeen, Elma and Hoquiam, when time came for the dedication …”

According to consolidatedaircraft.org, Reuben Fleet was a teacher in Montesano in 1906. He entered the National Guard in 1907 and he became an aviation enthusiast in 1914. After Fleet left the Air Service, he formed Consolidated Aircraft Corporation.

Fleet died in San Diego, Calif., in 1975. There, he has a science museum named in his honor — the Fleet Science Center.

Neither the city nor the Montesano Post Office are planning special events to commemorate the first Air Mail route.