Within a decade of the Wright Brothers' 1903 flight, Florida became a center of early aviation milestones as the first transcontinental flight landed at Jacksonville in 1912, a naval air training center opened at Pensacola in 1913, and the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line began service in 1914 as the world's first regularly scheduled commercial airline. Tom Benoist, a pioneer airboat manufacturer from St Louis, launched this cargo and passenger airline and a flying school on Tampa Bay, building hangars on the north edge of the yacht basin with backing from members of the St. Petersburg Board of Trade. Anthony "Tony" Jannus, Benoist's head pilot, carried the airline's first passenger, former mayor A. C. Pheil, across the bay in a biplane on January 1, 1914, after Pheil won the honor with a high bid of $400 at an auction held before the flight. The twenty mile maiden flight took twenty-three minutes, and a few days later a light cargo was flown across the bay for the first time. Although the airline lasted only a few months because of financial and technical difficulties, its operations demonstrated that air travel was practical.