August 17, 1859 John Wise flew from Lafayette, Indiana, to Crawfordsville, Indiana, and carried 123 letters and 23 circulars on board that had been collected by the postmaster Thomas Wood and endorsed “PREPAID” but only one of these historic postal covers was discovered in 1957.

Historically, balloons were used to transport mail from Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-72. Sixty-five unguided mail balloons were released in besieged Paris to communicate with the world beyond the besieging forces, of which only two went missing.