On January 18, 1959 Delta Air Lines inaugurated the balance of the service awarded in the Great Lakes - Southeast Service Case. Saint Petersburg / Clearwater (served through Saint Petersburg's Pinellas International Airport) and Tampa each received separate stub-end service via Atlanta, thus dispatching only northbound. Columbus (embraced between Detroit and Cincinnati) and Louisville (embraced between Detroit and Atlanta) were served on different trips both northbound and southbound. 

This cover was carried on the inaugural Air Mail Route 54 flight from Saint Petersburg, Florida to Jacksonville, Florida (where it was backstamped) and is listed in the Contract Air Mail Flights (CAM) section of The American Air Mail Catalogue as 54N34.

Perry Nahl, a former Editor-in-Chief of The American Air Mail Catalogue, prepared the cover.