Two monuments at the Rogers Post Site in Barrow, Alaska, commemorate the fatal plane crash of August 16, 1935, which claimed the lives of prominent Americans Will Rogers and Wiley Post. Will Rogers, an actor, writer, expert, and homespun philosopher whom the New York Times once called “the most famous American citizen…and the best loved,” was also a pioneer in the development of air transportation. Wiley Post, the holder of two world aviation flight records, made a notable contribution to the development of international aviation, including the study of the substratosphere. Both houses of Congress suspended deliberations upon learning of the deaths of Rogers and Post, and a period of national mourning followed with messages of condolence issued by leaders and governments around the world.
Neither Rogers nor Post were strangers to Alaska. This particular flight was described by the Associated Press as a “happy air tour of Alaska” that would be a prelude to a planned important groundbreaking trans-Siberian flight to Moscow. The two men visited several Alaskan cities. On August 16, Rogers and Post were flying from Fairbanks to Barrow when they encountered fog and poor visibility. The two friends found a hole in the fog in Wallacpa Bay, disembarked, spent some time with a small group of Alaska Natives, and received directions to the short distance remaining to fog-shrouded Barrow. The last flight had barely gotten 50 feet in the air when the engine failed. The plane crashed into the lagoon and overturned. The Post-Rogers crash was the first fatal airplane crash Barrow knew of.
Wiley Post, born in Texas in 1899, gained international recognition in his career after his unexpected victory as an unknown in the 1930 National Air Races from Los Angeles to California. In the years leading up to the crash, Post had stopped in Alaska to refuel during his two round-the-world flights. In 1931, he landed his airplane, the Winnie Mae, in both Fairbanks and Solomon Beach, near Nome, with his navigator Harold Getty. Then, in a solo flight that improved his time by almost a day, he landed the Winnie the Pooh again at Fairbanks and then at Flathead in the summer of 1933. The airplane that Post and Rogers flew in 1935 was an improved version of the Winnie the Pooh, but designed by Post. It was a cantilevered low-wing monoplane of wood and fabric construction powered by a 55 horsepower Pratt and Whitney Wasp engine. The fuselage was a Lockheed Orion and the wing was a Sirius, similar to the airplane previously flown across the Pacific to Japan by Charles and Ann Lindbergh. For the conditions of Alaska and Siberia, it had interchangeable skis and pontoons in addition to landing wheels, and was described by the Army communications radio station from Barrow to Seattle as “the red Arctic Sky cruiser.”
The first monument at this site was consecrated only three years after the tragic disaster, organized through a public subscription by thousands of Americans. The Will Rogers-Wiley Post Monument was designed in Oklahoma and built on site from concrete using local aggregates. Essentially, the design was two cubes – a smaller one on top of a larger one – with a pink granite memorial marker quarried near the Rogers family homestead in Claremore, Oklahoma. The elaborate dedication ceremonies included a four-way Columbia Broadcasting radio program from the nation’s capital, the Oklahoma and Texas state houses, and from Barrow and Valakpa, Alaska. The second monument was built 15 years later by Jesse Stubbs. More slender and nearly 10 feet taller than the first, it was built as an obelisk, completely cast in concrete, in four rectangular, reduced blocks. Little is known about Stubbs, who arrived in Anchorage with the intention of walking from there to Barrow in the summer of 1953. Claiming to be a childhood friend of Rogers, although no records support this, the 72-year-old man personally erected the obelisk. It honors not only Rogers and Post, but also World War II veterans from Alaska. Both monuments overlook the site of the lagoon crash.