Wyoming Aviation Heritage League Restores Historic Airmail Arrows

Giant yellow arrows across Wyoming guided pilots long before glass cockpit screens displayed glowing navigation lines. In Wyoming, a dedicated aviation preservation group is working to make those long-faded 1920s landmarks stand out once more, repainting the historic guides in chrome yellow, cowboystatedaily.com reported.

Restoring the Transcontinental Airmail Trail

The Wyoming Aviation Heritage League has launched a statewide campaign to revitalize the massive concrete arrows that once directed airmail pilots across the state. Dean McClain, a semi-retired crop duster from Torrington, told cowboystatedaily.com that the organization aims to repaint all of the state’s arrows chrome yellow.

While the bulk of the project is planned for next year, volunteers have already completed work on the Silver Crown arrow located about 20 miles northwest of Cheyenne. At that site, four volunteers spent roughly two hours cleaning the arrow, removing encroaching grass and dirt, sweeping the concrete and using a leaf blower to clear away dust before applying two coats of yellow exterior marking paint.

Wyoming’s remaining arrows are estimated to number between 22 and 30, while the league continues counting to verify how many survived and evaluate their condition for painting or major restoration.

The Golden Spike of Medicine Bow

Among the arrows they’ll paint next summer is the one at Medicine Bow’s airport. This preservation effort coincides with a broader push to restore the historic airmail station, transforming the site into a heritage tourism destination for visitors from the skies.

Megan Stanfill of the Alliance for Historic Wyoming described the Medicine Bow facility to cowboystatedaily.com as the “golden spike” of the early transcontinental mail era. The installation was the final radio milestone required to complete a safer navigation system for the route.

Usa wyoming medicine bow national forest landscape with fireweed flowers and mountain lake

“It has an intact rail history,” Stanfill said. “And it has intact Lincoln Highway, too. So all three of those transportation histories are so well-represented in Medicine Bow.”

Previously, airmail flyers relied entirely on manual navigation by following the Union Pacific rail lines underneath them—an intuitive practice they fondly termed the “iron compass.” Guiding these aviators were the Bureau of Lighthouses and Postal Service concrete arrows and 50-foot beacons, with the illumination enabling safer nighttime journeys. On Feb. 12, 1931, engineers flipped the switch on a newly installed, low-frequency radio range beacon at Site 32, as Medicine Bow’s airport was also known.

A Living Aviation Museum

Medicine Bow’s airport has entertained some of the world’s most famous pilots, including Amelia Earhart, Charles Lindbergh, and Elrey Jeppesen, who invented the standardized aerial navigation charts used by modern pilots worldwide. Mayor Justin George told cowboystatedaily.com that the airfield is already drawing pilots and aviation history enthusiasts, including members of national organizations, for fly-ins and fundraisers.

The town has reformed its long-dormant Airport Advisory Board to help steer its airfield’s preservation. The next step will be stabilizing the original 1920s weather station. Contributions have already been secured for a replacement roof on the building, designed via historical standards to match the original architecture. As the board works to clear the site, Medicine Bow hopes that its connection to a 1931 aviation landmark will attract a fresh wave of travelers, specifically pilots and history enthusiasts eager to linger and explore.