Learn a little of Toronto's history as told through its plaques.
Canada's First Air Mail
Photos by Alan L Brown - September 2004
An airport in Leaside? Who would have imagined! But at that airport in 1918, a JN-4 Curtiss landed after making Canada's first air mail flight. In this small parkette at the south-east corner of Brentcliffe Road and Broadway Avenue, near the former airport, stands an Ontario Heritage Trust plaque. The text says:
At 10:12 a.m. on June 24, 1918, Captain Brian Peck of the Royal Air Force and mechanic Corporal C.W. Mathers took off from the Bois Franc Polo Grounds in Montreal in a JN-4 Curtiss two-seater airplane. They had with them the first bag of mail to be delivered by air in Canada. Wind and rain buffetted the small plane and forced it to make refuelling stops at Kingston and Deseronto. Finally, at 4:55 p.m., Peck and Mathers landed at the Leaside Aerodrome (immediately southwest of here). The flight had been arranged by a civilian organization, the Aerial League of the British Empire, to demonstrate that aviation was the way of the future.
Related web pages
Royal Air Force
JN-4 Curtiss
Leaside Aerodrome
Plaque Location Co-ordinates: N 43 43.025 W 79 21.683
Here are the comments for this page.
Posted July 17, 2010
Did they pick up mail in Kingston?
Posted January 18, 2009
I've been looking for this place for ages and now I know where it was! I was told that it was a little east of the Winners store. I assumed the street named Areodrome cres. was where it was.
Thanks!
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