Editing Wiley Post (section)

==Early life==
Post was born to parents who cultivated cotton on a farm near [[Grand Saline, Texas]]. His father was William Francis and his mother was Mae Quinlan Post, a person of mixed Cherokee heritage. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was five. He was an indifferent student, but managed to complete the sixth grade. By 1920, his family settled on a farm near [[Maysville, Oklahoma]].<ref name="EOHC-Post">Carlson. Erik D. [http://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry.php?entry=PO023 "Post, Wiley Hardeman (1898–1935)."] ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''. Retrieved: April 10, 2015.</ref>{{efn|There is disagreement about Wiley Post's birthplace. Some sources say it was Grand Saline, Texas.<ref>Johnson, Bobby H. [http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpo27 "Post, Wiley Hardeman."] ''The Texas State Historical Association''. Retrieved: April 3, 2009.</ref> This is what Post says in his chapter on his early history in "Around the World in Eight Days".<ref name="EOHC-Post"/> others claim he was born in [[Corinth, Van Zandt County, Texas]].<ref name="EOHC-Post"/> An old edition of the ''World Book'' claims it was Grand Plain, Texas. Even Maysville, Oklahoma has claimed the honor.<ref name="Oklahoman">[http://newsok.com/article/2656579 "Festival Celebrates Wiley Post's Birthplace." ''Oklahoman''. June 10, 1999.] Accessed January 19, 2017.</ref>}}

In 1913, Post first saw an aircraft in flight at the county fair in [[Lawton, Oklahoma]]. It was a Curtiss-Wright "[[pusher configuration|Pusher type]]". The event so inspired him that he immediately enrolled in the [[Sweeney Automobile School|Sweeney Automobile and Aviation School]] in [[Kansas City]]. Seven months later, he returned to Oklahoma, and went to work at the Chickasaw and Lawton Construction Company.<ref name="EOHC-Post"/>

During World War I Post wanted to become a pilot in the U.S. Army Air Service (USAS). Joining the training camp at the University of Oklahoma, he learned radio technology. Germany agreed to an armistice before he completed his training. The war ended, and he went to work as a "[[roughneck]]" in the Oklahoma oilfields. The work was unsteady, so he turned briefly to armed robbery. He was arrested in 1921 and sent to the [[Oklahoma State Reformatory]], serving more than a year there. He was paroled in summer 1922.<ref name="EOHC-Post"/>