Giant Concrete Arrows Populate the American Landscape

This was brought to my attention recently and I thought it was fascinating.  Scattered around the American landscape are giant concrete arrows, pointing the way west from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.  Some are up to seventy feet long, and sit in the middle of nowhere, pointing out towards the endless horizon.  If you have never heard of this, you aren't alone.  I had no idea these existed until today.  So what the heck could these arrows possibly be for?  If you want to guess, do so before the next paragraph.

Concrete Airmail Navigation Beacons

As it turns out, the arrows were built in the 1920s, and used to serve as a cross-country navigation system for the nation's first coast-to-coast airmail route before the time of radar.  Installation of the arrows, which were painted bright yellow and incorporated a lighted beacon atop a steel tower, were completed by 1929, and shortened the travel time from New York to San Francisco from weeks to around thirty hours.  At the time it was quite the achievement, and was envied by postal systems around the world.

By the 1940s, however, radar and radio had made the beacons obsolete, and they were ultimately decommissioned.  The steel towers no longer exist as they were dismantled and sold for scrap during World War II, but the concrete arrows can still be found scattered around the American countryside.  Weather has washed away the paint, and dozens of winters have caused the concrete to crack and decay, but you can still find many of the arrows largely intact if you know where to look.  If you are interesting in finding some of your own, Google Maps certainly has the resolution to spot these arrows, but unless you accidentally come across one or know where it is beforehand, you will be hard-pressed to find one on your own.  These are one of those things that have gotten lost to history, occasionally spotted by a random hiker throughout the years, making an interesting story, and now, an interesting Google search.

An airmail navigation arrow, once used by the US Postal Service in the 1920s and 30s on airmail
routes, now sits long-abandoned in Utah.  The arrows were originally painted yellow, and
were accompanied by a fifty-foot tower and beacon, and a shack that housed the generator.
Only the concrete remains.

Original route of the first cross country airmail service in the United States.

Drawing of the beacon design, complete with concrete arrow, beacon tower, and generator shack.