News-Journal got its image of moon launch via pigeon
The Daytona Beach Evening News' front page on July 16, 1969, had a dramatic shot of Apollo 11 taking off to the moon. This was all the more remarkable because Apollo 11 took off at 9:32 a.m. and the newspaper’s deadline usually didn't extend much past 1 p.m. (There were two editions of the newspaper then. The Evening News and Daytona Beach Morning Journal would merge in 1986.)
This was accomplished because the film arrived to the newspaper via a distinctly low-tech method — a racing pigeon.
In those days before instant transmission of digital photographs, News-Journal photographer John Gontner arranged to borrow pigeons from a Holly Hill hobbyist and took them with him to the launch area 60 miles away. He wrapped color film of the launch in black paper, put it into an envelope taped to one bird’s leg, and released it, along with a companion bird, 15 minutes after blastoff.
The pigeon was used because the roads around Cape Kennedy were jammed with launch watchers that morning. Gontner did his best to race around the cars on a motorcycle and get the rest of his film to the newspaper. Even so, the pigeon carrying the film, named 581 Silver, beat Gontner home.
The pigeons' coop was only a half mile from The News-Journal building, where bird owner Harry Keenbach lived. He kept a flock of some 60 pigeons there. And shortly after 11 a.m. that morning, the pigeons arrived and were coaxed back into the coop. (Keenbach "softly whistled as the birds hovered over the lofts for a few seconds before landing" according to a News-Journal account.) Staff writer Ray LaPrise and a photographer retrieved the film and rushed it to The News-Journal's darkroom for processing. The presses started for the final edition of that day's Evening News at 2:55 p.m., and the launch shot was prominently displayed on the front page beneath the headline, "Three Astronauts Blast Off On Man's Most Historic Voyage."
"It wasn't a great picture, but it was there," News-Journal chief photographer Jack Jessee later told the Associated Press. "It was quite a feat."
