It took Leon Cuddeback 6 hours and 18 minutes to fly to Elko, Nevada, from Pasco 100 years ago on the first scheduled contracted air mail service flight in the U.S., establishing Pasco as the birthplace of commercial airline service in the U.S.

If you missed that historic flight, you can enjoy the spirit of it during a Sept. 26 reenactment during the Air Jubilee event at the Pasco Aviation Museum.

Many of the festivities leading to the departure of the April 6, 1926, flight will be reenacted as they happened a century ago, said Malin Bergstrom, volunteer board director of the museum preserving local aviation history.

Ground ceremonies at the airport in 1926 featured a stagecoach carrying 207 pounds of mail drawn by a team of six horses. The stagecoach’s journey from Spokane to Pasco took five days.

The horse-drawn coach pulled up to Cuddeback’s Laird Swallow biplane, highlighting the contrast of frontier mail travel against modern day. Estimates of those watching the takeoff ranged from a low of 2,500 to a high of 6,000.

A stagecoach, featuring “U.S. Mail” inscribed on its exterior, is expected at the Pasco reenactment.

Museum officials also hope to display an original open-cockpit Laird Swallow biplane at the event. It is currently being restored in California, and Bergstrom said restoration is nearly complete.

As many as a half dozen other restored historical aircraft also will be on display for visitor viewing, she said.

“This is not an airshow,” Bergstrom said, noting the aircraft will remain on the ground for viewing throughout the program.

Among the planes on display will be the Stearman and Chipmunk.

The Stearman is an open-cockpit biplane built with wooden wings covered by fabric built by the Stearman Aircraft Corp. of Wichita, Kansas, and used by military pilots in World War II. About 8,500 were built.

The Chipmunk, a 2-seated low-wing aircraft with an enclosed cockpit, was the first post-World War II plane manufactured by the De Havilland Aircraft Co. of Canada, with 1,000 built to replace the biplane. 

In 1986, Boeing bought the company, and it became Boeing of Canada. Boeing sold it to Bombardier Aerospace in 1992.

Cuddeback worked as a pilot for Varney Air Lines when he flew out of Pasco. 

The Boise, Idaho-headquartered airline received one of the first designated route air mail contracts awarded to a private airline by the U.S. Postal Service. 

Later, Varney Air Lines and other companies, including Boeing Air Transport, merged to become United Air Lines, according to the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Parcels aboard Cuddeback’s plane included bottles of grape juice from the Tri-Cities, destined as a gift to President Calvin Coolidge and Gov. Al Smith of New York. In 1928 Smith was the Democratic Party nominee for president who lost to Herbert Hoover. 

The Kennewick Chamber of Commerce also sent a box of asparagus for Harry New, postmaster general of the United States.

The plane lifted off the ground at 6:20 a.m. in Pasco for a first-leg stop in Boise, arriving at 10:10 a.m. local time. Cuddeback was greeted by enthusiastic large crowds like those he enjoyed leaving Pasco. He dropped off the mail and departed Boise with new sacks.

He arrived in Elko, clocking 4 hours and 28 minutes of flying time and becoming the first civilian pilot to deliver mail by air in the U.S. by contract with the U.S. government.

In addition to the reenactments and aircraft displays during the Air Jubilee event, vendors will be on hand to serve food.

Bergstrom said parking is limited and urged visitors to carpool if possible.

Admission for all ages is $5. The Sept. 26 event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 4102 Stearman Ave., Pasco.