mules. handcart trains Rockets Over the past two centuries, since its inception in 1775, the United States Postal Service has experimented with a wide variety of transportation methods to deliver mail to residential addresses in our country. some methods remained and others fell by the wayside. We thought it would be a fun idea to list them all and talk a little about each one. then voila! Below are all the forms of transportation the USPS has used (and continues to use) to deliver mail.
delivery vans
virtually since the day we were born, we’ve all seen usps trucks doing their rounds on the street every day. The red, white and blue square vehicles are as recognizable from a brand as McDonald’s or Coca Cola, everyone knows them. Although delivery vehicles have evolved over the years, the USPS has relied on its reliable motorized vehicles to deliver mail since they began using them in the early 20th century. A postman named Lloyd Mortice even converted his Model T into a snowmobile in 1926 so he could make his rounds during snowstorms. talk about a commitment to work!
planes
air delivery is one of the most popular forms of transportation used by usps, for obvious reasons. When they need to deliver packages quickly, the fastest way to get them across the country is by plane. USPS generally uses air delivery for urgent services such as Priority Mail and Express Priority Mail. transcontinental air service began in the summer of 1924 and has been going strong ever since.
trains
Trains were the primary method of transport for long distances before airplanes came into existence, and USPS took full advantage of them. Believe it or not, USPS still uses trains to transport parcels across the country! Trains obviously take longer to reach their destination, but they are a much more cost-effective solution than air travel. In fact, whenever a USPS customer sends a package in the mail class USPS Retail Ground, that package will most likely end up on a train such as Amtrak (unless it doesn’t need to travel a long distance, of course).
ships and boats
To this day, the US Postal Service. uu. uses boats and ships to transport letters and packages both within and outside the country. This goes without saying. However, did you know that the USPS relies on water transportation to deliver mail to select parts of the United States? in fact, some of these water supply methods are quite special. For example, a route on Wisconsin’s Lake Geneva features “mail hopping,” in which mail carriers jump from their boat, exchange incoming and outgoing mail on the dock, then jump back into their still-moving boat to get there. to the next pier. Although these water routes are quite interesting, 99% of them are only seasonal. The only year-long mail-in water delivery route in the entire United States is in Magnolia Springs, Alabama, serving approximately 180 households and is 31 miles long.
snowmobiles
Snowmobiles have been a part of the delivery fleet for several decades, and the USPS still uses them to deliver mail in states that receive heavy snowfall during the winter, such as Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Alaska. we bet postal workers have a lot of fun smashing it on their routes after some fresh powder hits the ground… as long as it’s not so cold outside that usps has to stop delivery altogether.
road buses
the usps road bus was introduced in the early 1940s as a kind of “post office on wheels”. the 1930s saw a significant decline in rail traffic, and as a result, the postal service created the concept of the highway bus to take on some of the burden of long-distance mail transportation. it was an impressive feat: these red, white and blue buses were equipped with distribution tables, letter boxes and enough space to hold up to 150 sacks of mail. however, highway buses eventually fell out of fashion in the 1970s due to advances in sorting automations and a major restructuring of the entire postal system. In fact, this restructuring led to the high-speed sorting system at centralized locations that the USPS still uses to this day.
horse and cart
As shown in the main image of this article, horses and carts pulling behind them were a very popular method of delivering mail in the 19th century. this was not too terrible a way of delivering mail, as the wagons had plenty of room to store letters and the horses could easily pull them. however, working with a live animal is not always the most reliable option, and as soon as operational motorized vehicles appeared, the horse and buggy method was history.
electric vehicles
Before you think of a shiny tesla that burns rubber, we’re not talking about the kind of electric vehicles you’re thinking of. The USPS actually started using electric vehicles in the early 1900s. However, the technology during that time was not what it is now, and the vehicles were not considered adequate replacements for horses and sleds during the winter season. We’ve come a long way since then, and the USPS is slowly working to return to its early electric vehicle ambitions. In fact, the USPS recently began testing all-electric pickup trucks in central California on February 5. this could be a big step towards a sustainable future for the US postal service, and who knows? maybe they’ll be at the top of this list if we remake it one day.
mule mail
Believe it or not, USPS still uses mules to deliver mail to residents of Supai, Arizona. Technology and innovation have brought us planes, trains, and automobiles over the years, and as a result, this once-popular form of mail delivery has all but been eliminated. however, it is not over until it is over. The Supai Trail to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is the last remaining mule trail in the entire country. say what you want and laugh all you want but the mule system still works like a charm for usps.
the three-wheeled mailster
The three-wheeled mail carrier was a fun-looking vehicle with a top speed of 35 miles per hour that allowed postal workers to haul up to 500 pounds of mail at a time. That kind of volume was unprecedented at the time, and USPS rolled the dice on mailsters in a big way. In 1966, letter carriers comprised more than a third of the entire USPS delivery fleet. however, the investment did not pay off in the way the organization had hoped. while the higher-ups of the postal service loved the idea, the actual workers who drove these vehicles hated it. mail carriers could be immobilized by a few inches of snow and did not provide adequate heating. Plus, they could tip over just as easily as a college student after one too many drinks.
motorcycles
Motorcycles may seem like a viable alternative to larger motor vehicles as we still see them every day. However, motorcycles did not reach the United States Postal Service in the same way that they did with police forces. In fact, the USPS only used the motorcycle experimentally in Washington, D.C. in 1912, and they quickly stopped him when winter came. suffice it to say that it did not work as expected. motorcycles didn’t have enough storage space to store mail and didn’t perform as well on snow and ice.
handcarts
It seems hard to imagine in the age of smartphones, but mail carriers used to deliver mail on foot using handcarts. Speaking of trudging… we wouldn’t want to walk a mile in their shoes! faced with the choice, we prefer just uber…but unfortunately, postal workers didn’t have that luxury back then. they may have been slow, but handcarts got the job done just fine until more efficient means of transportation eventually came along.
segways
Remember when segways were all the rage? At the height of his popularity, it was not uncommon to see a postman riding a Segway to complete his route as Aladdin on his magic carpet. however, there was not enough storage space in them, walking on sidewalks and curbs was difficult, and climbing a flight of stairs was simply not possible. ultimately, the fad didn’t last long. These days, Bird and Lime scooters are taking the world by storm, and those devices aren’t that different from Segways. who knows? we may see USPS workers zipping by on electric scooters to deliver mail one of these days.
rockets
Apparently the US Postal Service beat our boy Elon Musk to the punch 60 years ago. really. In the late 1950s, United States Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield requested a new means of delivering mail to meet growing demand across the country. apparently the best idea these guys came up with was missile mail. On June 8, 1959, the US Navy submarine Barber launched a missile containing 300 letters off the coast of Florida in a demonstration that was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. The demonstration was a success, and Postmaster Summerfield proudly declared, “We are on the threshold of rocket mail!” rocket mail obviously never came to fruition… but the fact that it was even a discussion in the first place still amazes us (pun intended).