San Jon has a former airmail beacon on the ground

Thanks to social media, people in recent years have become fascinated by so-called “arrows on the ground” that served as airmail beacons during the 1920s. Because these long-abandoned arrows were made of concrete, many still survive.

To my surprise, I recently found out the Route 66 town of San Jon, New Mexico, also built a ground beacon for airmail pilots with the letters “SAN JON” just above a skinny arrow during the 1920s. An internet search of the San Jon beacon turned up nothing, so this is a fairly obscure landmark.

My boss at the newspaper I work for wrote a column a few weeks ago on behalf of former resident Carol Nash about the San Jon beacon:

She wants to know which area communities still have evidence they were once part of a Los Angeles-to-New York aerial mail service that planned to establish itself in 1920.
She has reason to believe San Jon had a landing field associated with the National Air Lines Association project. That’s partly because it was reported in her grandfather’s San Jon Sentinel on April 2, 1920, and partly because of a collection of large cement stones that can still be seen from the air pointing the way to San Jon.
The photo she has was probably taken by her dad, Clark White, sometime around 1990 when the stones were last painted. The man in the photo is Earl Flint, mayor of San Jon at the time.
The stones spelling out San Jon – and pointing the way – can still be seen today, though they are largely covered in dirt. They are located northeast of San Jon, south of Interstate 40.

While researching another project at a local library, I stumbled onto more information about the San Jon airmail marker in Mary Lynn Moncus’ 2003 book, “Quay County, New Mexico, 1903-2003”:

In 1913, the National Airline Association built a landing strip at San Jon to serve as an emergency strip rather than a regular landing spot for airmail that was to be flown from Los Angeles to New York via El Paso, Tucumcari, San Jon, Vega and Amarillo. A marker still exists at the original site near Earl Flint’s home.

The book also stated San Jon established a landing field in 1921, and the letters on the ground were built in 1922. A photo in the book also shows the marker, shown above.

The book didn’t clear up all the questions about the airline association and the San Jon airfield, but it provided more information than we initially had.

I found a barely discernable satellite image of the marker on Google Maps. I’m not sure how old the satellite image is, but I couldn’t see the marker during a recent check from Interstate 40. It’s probably covered by cacti and other brush. An effort to contact the pasture’s landowner was unsuccessful.

(Image of the San Jon airmail ground marker from Mary Lynn Moncus’ book “Quay County, New Mexico, 1903-2003”)