On 6 Apr 2007 08:31:15 -0700, "Jon" wrote
in .com:

Eighty-one years ago today, on April 6, 1926, the first official
commercial mail transport flight occurred, piloted by Franklin Rose of
Boise-based Varney Airlines.


http://www.airmailpioneers.org/history/milestone3.html
FLIGHT INTO HISTORY
EARLE OVINGTON WAS FIRST

September 23, 1911, dawned gray and cold. Despite the chilly air
and metallic skies, 10,000 spectators thronged to Long Island’s
Garden City Estates for the big international aviation meet.
...
Did Ovington sign up for the Garden City competition hoping to
become the country’s first airmail pilot? The answer may never be
known, but it is known that when the organizers of the meet asked
for a pilot to carry the mail that day Ovington stepped forward.
It mattered not to him that the airmail experiment offered no
remuneration. Perhaps, he saw immortality winging his way. His
wife, Adelaide, remembered that when he heard that Gov. Woodruff
was looking for someone to carry the mail, he asked, "Is this the
first time it has ever been carried in America?"

U.S. Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock had long considered
aeoplanes a prime vehicle for transporting mail. As early as
November 1910 he approved a ship-to-shore airmail experiment, but
bad weather squelched one attempt and a broken propeller crushed a
second effort. Not one to give up, when Hitchcock learned of the
forthcoming trials at Garden City, he convinced organizers to
include an experimental mail trial. ...