Wiley Post and his Australian navigator landed in New York City on Jul. 1, 1931 completing an epic around-the-world flight in record-breaking time.
Two states claimed Wiley Hardeman Post as a native son. Texas had birth going for it since the intrepid aviator began his short life in Van Zandt County a couple of years shy of the twentieth century. Oklahoma, however, had residency on its side because the Posts relocated north of the Red River when Wiley was nine.
The simple pleasures of farm life never appealed to the youngster, whose head always seemed to be in the clouds. Wiley regularly skipped his chores to whittle model planes out of scrap wood and to dream of the day he would defy the law of gravity.
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