Aimee T

The Mission was STS-135, the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the last mission of the shuttle program. It will be the first time the Crew Dragon has carried a Crew into space. In fact, the spacecraft commander, Douglas Hurley, was Shuttle Atlantis’s pilot on the final mission, STS-135, in 2011. The pad was reconfigured for the Shuttle program, and STS-1, the first flight of the Shuttle Program, christened the pad in 1981.

This was due to factors such as the 3rd Seminole War interrupting work and the inlet’s silting shut, which caused supplies to be offloaded from large ships to smaller sloops in 35 miles out in the Indian River Inlet. The Navy had a Naval Radio Station, and the Coast Guard built a D/F of High-frequency direction-finding station nearby. The post’s official name was The Communications Radio Intelligence Unit and Radio Direction Finding Station, also known as “Station J”. The U-boats were having a hay day, sinking boats off the coast of Florida.

The rumblings of civil war in the East created a far higher demand for a faster way to get mail and news from the East to the most western state in a timely fashion. Their idea was that a man should mount a swift pony, well tried for his endurance before starting; that this man should ride fifteen miles straight out into the desert, and that at the end of the fifteen miles there should be a station, a house with a couple of men in it, who would have another pony ready. The horseman was to ride up to this shanty, jump to the ground with his bag of letters, immediately jump on the fresh Pony, and rush along another fifteen miles to a similar station. He went from Red Buttes Station to Rocky Ridge Station and returned for a round trip distance of 322 miles, which he completed in 21 hours and 40 minutes.

The other day I was using Kingsford Charcoal to grill hamburgers and hot dogs, little realizing that there was more to the Kingsford brand, including its connection with a well-known car manufacturer in the 1920s and 30s. The history of Kingsford Charcoal Briquets and a car manufacturer go hand in hand. Following Ford’s death, Henry Ford the Second sold the Charcoal business in 1951 to an investment group who renamed the business Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford. So the next time you strike a match and light your charcoal Briquet, whether they are Kingsford or another brand, remember you have Henry Ford to thank for marketing the Charcoal Briquets.