The Dawn Patrol

One of the more colorful flights out of the Municipal Field was the delivery of the morning papers to the islands, a service started in 1939. Reporter Joyce Turner, in an article in the Fort Myers News-Press edition of January 16, 1949, wrote of "this unique service which gives residents and visitors to Sanibel, Captiva, Boca Grande and Useppa islands today's headlines with their morning coffee."

She described the pilot, Perry Snell, flying the Dawn Patrol, as "swooping low to deposit the papers between two rows of houses on the water's edge." Early risers often came out to wave and watch their morning paper fall from the sky and with uncanny accuracy land on their "drop spot."

In later years, Dawn Patrol pilot Buddy Bobst delivered not only papers but other necessary items unobtainable on the islands. For $5, a passenger could ride along, leaving Municipal Field just before dawn and enjoy a "bird's eye view" of the sun coming up over the horizon.

The opening of the Sanibel Causeway on May 26, 1963, linked Sanibel and Captiva to the mainland and made possible ground delivery of papers and groceries. It also spelled the beginning of the end to the Dawn Patrol for after that Bobst flew mainly to the outlying islands of Useppa and Boca Grande.

The Dawn Patrol provided an essential service to the area for more than two decades. It was phased out in 1965.

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