connections to the city of Pensacola. The company was incorporated by a special act of the State of Florida on 12 February 1870 to improve infrastructure, and was granted an easement by Congress to run through the federal Navy Yard reservation on 30 January 1871. Naval aeronautical station The Navy Department awakened to the possibilities of naval aviation through the efforts of Captain Washington Irving Chambers; he prevailed upon Congress to include in the Naval Appropriation Act enacted in 1911–12 a provision for aeronautical development. Chambers was ordered to devote all of his time to naval aviation. In October 1913, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, appointed a board, with Captain Chambers as chairman, to make a survey of aeronautical needs and to establish a policy to guide future development. One of the board's most important recommendations was the establishment of an aviation training station in Pensacola. On 20 January 1914, LCdr. Henry C. Mustin, Naval Aviator No. 11, and Lt. John H. Towers, Naval Aviator No. 3, and Lt. Patrick N. L. Bellinger, Naval Aviator No. 8, arrived in Pensacola on the former battleship USS Mississippi with the men and aircraft from the Naval Aviation Camp at Annapolis, Maryland. "The aviation unit consisted of nine officers, 23 enlisted men, and seven aircraft." The first flight occurred on 2 February 1914, with Lt. Towers and Ens. Godfrey deC. Chevalier, Naval Aviator No. 7, at the controls. Upon the entry of the United States into World War I on 6 April 1917, Pensacola, still the only naval air station, had 38 naval aviators, 163 enlisted men trained in aviation support, and 54 fixed-wing aircraft. Two years later, by the signing of the armistice in November 1918, the air station, with 438 officers and 5,538 enlisted men, had trained 1,000 naval aviators. At war's end, seaplanes, dirigibles, and free kite balloons were housed in steel and wooden hangars stretching a mile down the air station beach. In the years following World War I, aviation training slowed down. An average of 100 pilots were graduating annually from the 12-month flight course. This was before the category of aviation cadets was established; officers were accepted for the flight training program only after at least two years of sea duty. The majority were Annapolis graduates, although a few reserve officers and enlisted men also graduated. Naval Air Station Pensacola became known as the "Annapolis of