IMPORTANT NOTE: The difficulty and terrain ratings for this cache are high for several reasons. The public property on which the cache is located can be a bit tricky to get to. I would highly advise looking at satellite image maps of the area to find an appropriate access route. Additionally, there are some trails that may appear to be geo-trails...they are not. These trails are used (apparently intermittently) by locals traveling between two adjacent neighborhoods. I have visited the cache site 4 times thus far and not yet encountered anyone, but taking along a geo-buddy might be advisable. As for the terrain - well, let's just say it will be about as much bushwhacking as one could ever hope for inside the city limits. Along with that comes to potential for any or all of the local creepy crawlies - including a generous amount of PI and related plants. There are also several low spots - including a very shallow creek bed - that will hold water during and after rains. So rubber boots and mosquito repellent may be in order. Other than that - Enjoy!
The coordinates noted above will lead you to a small monument on public property at the site of the original Delta building (The foundation is still there). The cache is located within ~30 feet of the monument. The cache is a 30-caliber ammo box and The FTF prize is an unregistered GeoCoin. Inside the cache, you will also find photographs of the site taken in the 1920s.
Delta has a long and colorful history. Below is a relatively brief summary of how the airline was birthed in Monroe.
Delta began its life as a passenger airline in 1929 - a year after C.E. Woolman, who had previously worked as an county extension agent in northeast Louisiana, coordinated the purchase Huff-Daland Duster Company (the nation's first aerial crop dusting business). On June 17, 1929, Delta Air Service operated its first passenger flight over a route that stretched from Dallas, Texas, to Jackson, Mississippi, with stops in Shreveport and Monroe, Louisiana. As additional planes were delivered from the factory, service was extended eastward to Birmingham, Alabama, and westward to Fort Worth, Texas.
However, the road to success was certainly turbulent as the Great Depression and a 4-year, "very political" (putting it nicely) process for awarding U.S. air mail routes almost grounded the company permanently. In fact, it took the company moving seasonal dusting operations to South America to keep it aloft.
The Monroe business community was instrumental in the success of Delta. The cities of Monroe / West Monroe provided a public airfield with a hangar to lure Huff-Daland to relocate its headquarters in Monroe. The original airfield was an old landing ground known as Smoot Field, but the great flood of 1927 led to a move to Selman Field. Additionally, several local investors became key members of Delta’s management team. These local leaders included D.Y. Smith (a wealthy planter), Travis Oliver (a prominent banker), Prentiss Atkins (a hardware dealer). A few years later, Malcom Biedenharn, whose father was the first to bottle Coca-Cola, also joined the company. Several local roads as well as buildings at the local university bear these families' names and several of these families still have a presence in the Monroe area.
Despite the initial hardships, Delta made its mark on the early history of aviation. Even before the birth of Delta's passenger service, Huff-Daland's 18 planes constituted the largest privately-owned fleet of aircraft in the world in 1925. Additionally, the company became renowned for their skills in aircraft repair. A story from the Delta Archives blog (blog.delta.com) illustrates this skill and gives great insight into the tenacity that contributed to the success of the company:
"No Job Too Hard" was the slogan of the Delta Air Service mechanics, shown below in 1929, standing outside the hangar at Selman Field in Monroe, Louisiana. Planes from all over the southern United States came to Monroe for repair work and overhauling by these wood and wing workers, fabric workers, welders and metal workers, motor mechanics and mechanic's helpers. The Monroe Morning Post wrote that Delta's "fame for turning out high class work has about passed that of any similar shop in the southern states." One pilot, who had his plane repaired at Monroe after a crash, remarked: "Those fellows could take the tail of a plane and build the rest easily." "He was right in every respect excepting one" said C.E. Woolman, Delta's vice president and general manager, "They don't even need the tail to start on."
The picture of the aforementioned "fellows", along with several other photographs of the original buildings at the site, is included in the cache container.
Although Delta moved its headquarters to Altanta in 1941, the company continued to hold its annual shareholder meetings in Monroe up until the 1990s and holds dear its heritage in Monroe.
Special thanks to Fred Methvin, retired Delta employee, for providing guidance on the cache location and research information and also to Marie Force, Delta Archives Manager, for providing additional research information and the historical photographs placed in the cache container.