FIRST EVENTS AND RECORDS SET AT NAS PENSACOLA

1.    First railroad in what is now Escambia County.

2.    First National Cemetery in Florida.

3.    First lighthouse in Florida—1824.

4.    Longest military occupation in CONUS—since November 1698.

5.    First U.S. Navy Base on the Gulf Coast—1824.  

6.    First major U.S. Army fortification in Florida—1829.

7.    First shots fired between the Union and Separatists—8  January, 1861.

8.    First Confederate Marines established.

9.    First Naval Aeronautic Station—January 1914.

10.  First Naval Aviation Assembly and Repair (A & R).

11.  First Yeomanette in the South—Mrs. Winifred Youd—1916.

12.  First Naval Commander to be court marshaled.

13.  First trained enlisted personnel as pilots—6  January 1916.

14.  First Coast Guard Pilot trained -3rd Lt. E. F. Stone—1916.  

15. First Naval aviation unit (3 aircraft) to confront foreign enemy, Tampico, Mexico was from NAS Pensacola, 20 April, 1914.

Note: The second unit (2 aircraft) was also sent to Mexico on 21 April 1914. 16. First aerial photograph made from a navy aircraft.

17. First Navy permanent aircraft hangers—1916  (Buildings 71, 72, and 73).

18. First catapult launching from a ship, made by Lt. Cdr. H. C. Mustin in a flying boat on 5 November, 1915, from the U.S.S. North Carolina in Pensacola Bay. 

19. First catapult launching from a barge—16 April, 1915 by Pat Bellinger in an AB-2 flying boat launched from a barge anchored in Pensacola Bay.

20. Records Set -

23 April 1915, Pat Bellinger set new altitude record of 10,000 fleet in an AH-10 aircraft over Pensacola Bay.

3 December, 1915, Richard Saufley reached 11,975 feet in an AH-14 for a new record.

29 March, 1916, Richard Saufley set another record of 16,010 feet in a hydroaeroplane. Four days later, 2 April, 1916 he bettered his record by reaching 16,072 feet.

9 June 1916, Richard Saufley set an endurance record in the AH-9 aircraft by staying in the air 8 hours and 51 minutes. Saufley crashed to his death on that flight in a 700 ft. nose dive on Santa Rosa Island.

Year 1931, removal of the largest community in the CONUS for expansion of a Navy Base--"Old" Warrington, approximately 2,500 people with residencies and businesses.

4 May 1960 a free weather balloon launched from Sherman Field set an altitude record of 151,870 feet or 28.76 miles high.

21. First aerial loop made in a seaplane, an N-9, made by Captain Francis T. Evans on 13 February 1917.

22. Home of the Navy's first dirigible, 1917.

23. First Chief Naval Air Training Command was established at NAS Pensacola in 1943.

24. First astronauts trained at NAS Pensacola.

25. First Naval Air Station to win the Commander in Chief Excellence Award 1988.

26. First Navy Base to win the Commander In Chief Excellence Award in consecutive years, 1988 and 1989.

27. First Historical Society on a Navy Base.

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