A native of McDonough, Tye Carter Sanders became an amateur radio operator in 1911 and was the organizer and president of the first Atlanta Wireless Club. A photographer-reporter for the” Atlanta Journal,” he enlisted in the Navy coast defense reserves as a radio operator in 1917 and reported for training in Charleston. The following year he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Air Service (Aeronautics), United States Army and trained at Souther Field, Americus and Carlstrom Field, Acadia, Florida. In early 1919 he flew an unscheduled air mail pouch into Atlanta’s Candler Field from Macon, and the following year he published a visionary article “How to Make Atlanta An Airport” in the Sunday, February 1, 1920, issue of the “Atlanta Journal” Magazine. “With the growth of aviation,” he wrote, “airdromes will be as important to the community as its railroads and terminals.” He predicted that communities which first establish airdromes would invite airmail service, aerial passengers and express service, pleasure-seeking aviators and many auxiliary benefits which accompany broadened fields of action.” One of the original newsreel photographers from 1926 to 1962 who filmed the evolution of flying, Sanders also covered such stories as the Gainesville tornado in 1936, the crash of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker’s plane near Morrow in 1941, and the Winecoff Hotel fire in 1946. Sanders is a founder member of the Order of Daedalians.

Tye Carter Sanders was enshrined on May 18, 1991, a visionary veteran of aviation history in Georgia.