All American Aviation

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

All American Aviation, Inc. was organized in 1937 and began its unusual airmail work from Pittsburgh in 1939. Its mission was gloriously impractical-looking: pilots swooped low over rural pickup points and snagged mailbags suspended between poles. Somehow, the airborne fishing expedition worked.

The carrier’s Air Pick-Up network radiated through western Pennsylvania and the Ohio River valley, bringing airmail service to smaller communities that the regular air routes overlooked. Pittsburgh was its early corporate home and operating center; the company later shifted headquarters to Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia.

In 1949, All American Aviation changed its name to All American Airways as it entered scheduled passenger service with DC-3s. The airline became Allegheny Airlines on January 1, 1953, later adopting the USAir and US Airways names. Along the way, the modest mail carrier grew into a far larger regional-airline story.

Our All American Aviation collection celebrates the era when a pilot could collect the mail without bothering to land—because apparently a runway was optional when you had nerve, timing, and a hook.