Gulf Coast Air Line   Curtiss HS-2L                           (No registration)

                                 

                                         On 9 April 1923, Merrill K. Riddick opened a short airline route from New Orleans to
                                         Pilottown, Louisiana a distance of some 80 miles.    The idea was to provide a mail link
                                         with steamships arriving at, and departing from, Pilottown on their routes to the Carib-
                                         bean and South America., thus saving mail time.    Oddly, the little company was given
                                         the foreign mail contract FAM-3, even thought it did not fly into foreign territory.
                                         A couple of ex-military HS-2Ls were used.   Photo from  the Smithsonian archives.
                                         In 1927 Pan American took over the foreign air mails to latin America.