Northwest
Airlines Curtiss Oriole
Northwest Airways
was incorporated on 1 August 1926, as a Michigan corporation
organized
by a group of Detroit and Twin Cities businessmen. It took
over
Contract
Air Mail
Route (CAM) # 9 from Charles Dickenson who had
been awarded the route
from
Minneapolis to Chicago with stops in La
Crosse, Madison and Milwaukee. The
service
was inaugurated with
a Curtiss Oriole and a Thomas Morse biplane. The image
above,
from the public domain, depicts a
Curtiss Oriole, but I am not sure if it is an actual
one
operated by Northwest.