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Regulation wagon, ca. 1895
A uniformed driver sits atop a regulation wagon in Boston, Massachusetts, circa 1895. Regulation wagons were used to transport mail between Post Offices, their stations, and train stations in large cities from the 1870s to the early 1900s. The wagon pictured here was painted red, white, and blue, with gold lettering, and could haul up to 5,000 pounds of mail. By the late 1890s regulation wagons began to be phased out in favor of lighter and cheaper screen wagons.
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Regulation wagon, ca. 1895
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Rural delivery wagon, ca. 1899
A rural carrier sits in his delivery wagon in Crawfordsville, Indiana, circa 1899. For an annual salary of $400 this carrier traveled about 29 miles daily, delivering mail to 750 customers, rain or shine, six days a week. Rural free delivery was a boon to farmers, who previously had to trek into town to pick up their mail. When the Crawfordsville Post Office got its first two rural routes in August 1898, it was the ninth Post Office in Indiana to offer the service.
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Rural delivery wagon, ca. 1899
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Screen wagons, 1900
Screen wagons, named for the built-in screen cages that protected the mail, were used from the late 1880s until they were gradually displaced by motor vehicles in the early 1900s.
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Screen wagons, 1900
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Electric automobile, 1901
A city carrier stands in front of an electric car in Buffalo, New York, on July 29, 1901. The car transported mail between the Buffalo Post Office and a temporary postal station at the nearby Pan-American Exhibition from May through October 1901. In 1900, the production of automobiles in the United States was about equally divided between electric-, steam-, and gasoline-powered models. Only later did gasoline engines come to dominate the market, in part because of Henry Ford’s successful mass production of the Model T.
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Electric automobile, 1901
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Rural delivery wagon, ca. 1901
A rural carrier on Rural Route No. 2, Rochester, Indiana, stands next to his wagon circa 1901. Rural delivery wagons, which carriers bought themselves, generally had a small combination desk/sorting case up front and room for a small cashbox and a coal-fired foot-warmer in winter. When it was established in October 1900, this carrier’s route was 35 miles long and served 1,000 customers. Rural carriers sometimes chose to wear uniforms, although it was not required.
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Rural delivery wagon, ca. 1901
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Columbia automobile, 1906
This vehicle, in Baltimore, Maryland, was one of two specially-built cars used to fulfill the first contract for the collection of mail by gasoline-powered automobile, beginning October 1, 1906. The mail contractor supplied both the cars and their drivers. Letter carriers, like the one shown here, collected the mail from the city’s street letter boxes. It was found in Baltimore that one of these automobiles could do the work of two horse-drawn carts.
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Columbia automobile, 1906
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Motorcycle, ca. 1911
A city carrier in Washington, D.C., gathers mail from a post-mounted collection box using "The Flying Merkel," a belt-driven, two-cylinder V-twin motorcycle, circa 1911. The use of motorcycles for mail collection and delivery in cities peaked in the 1920s. Four-wheeled automobiles and trucks, with their larger capacities, soon became the vehicles of choice.
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Motorcycle, ca. 1911
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Parcel Post truck, 1913
Letter carriers and driver pose with a Parcel Post truck in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1913. Parcel Post service began on January 1, 1913, and was an instant success, with 300 million parcels mailed in the first six months alone. The effect on the national economy was electric – the year the service began, Sears, Roebuck and Company handled five times as many orders as it did the year before.
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Parcel Post truck, 1913
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Mail truck, 1913
A group of men stands in front of a mail truck in New York City in 1913. In October 1913, about 100 drivers of the Postal Transfer Service Company, a mail contractor in New York City, went on strike. Chief among the drivers’ complaints was that the police had recently decided to enforce the city’s 20-mph speed limit, which would make it difficult for them to meet the company’s schedules. The company ignored its drivers’ complaints; within a day it dismissed all the striking drivers and hired new ones, sending them out under police guard.
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Mail truck, 1913
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Autocar truck, ca. 1914
A letter carrier loads mail into an Autocar truck in Pennsylvania circa 1914. The Autocar Company of Ardmore, Pennsylvania, was one of the leading truck manufacturers in the early 20th century. A couple of the company’s innovations – shaft-drive propulsion and porcelain-insulated spark plugs – became industry standards. The company built trucks from 1907 until it was bought out by the White Motor Car Company in 1953.
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Autocar truck, ca. 1914
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Automobile, ca. 1914
A city carrier collects mail from a post-mounted collection box. Collection boxes began appearing on city streets in the 1850s, enabling customers to mail letters without having to hand-deliver them to the nearest postal facility. Post-mounted collection boxes were the predecessor of today’s larger, stand-up models.
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Automobile, ca. 1914
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Motorcycles, 1914
Employees of the Greenville, South Carolina, Post Office pose for a photograph on April 10, 1914. Pictured with their Harley-Davidson and Excelsior motorcycles, from left to right, are Rural Carriers Arthur W. Hill, J. G Huff, Walter C. Stewart, John M. Cochran, and Irby P. Hudson. The two men standing with them are unidentified. Rural carriers purchased their own vehicles; they began using motorcycles to deliver mail around 1906. The use of motorcycles by carriers peaked around the time this photo was taken. The next year, the Postmaster General decreed that motorcycles could be used for rural delivery only if they had weatherproof containers attached to hold the mail.
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Motorcycles, 1914
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Parcel Post wagon, 1914
A Parcel Post wagon and its sturdy horse and driver take a moment on their route to pose for a photograph in Red Bank, New Jersey, in 1914. Although trucks were used to haul Parcel Post packages as early as 1913, old-fashioned horse power predominated until the 1920s.
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Parcel Post wagon, 1914
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Mail trucks, 1914
Chauffeurs pose next to mail trucks in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on December 12, 1914, while letter carriers look on in the background. Chauffeurs drove the vehicles; letter carriers accompanied them, collecting and delivering the mail. Signs tied to the sides of the trucks advertise Parcel Post: “MAIL YOUR PACKAGES EARLY, UNCLE SAM OFFERS YOU SAFE, CHEAP, PROMPT AND WILLING SERVICE. 50 LBS 150 MILES . . .”
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Mail trucks, 1914
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Parcel Post wagons, ca. 1915
Parcel Post wagons, horses, and handlers stand in front of 815 North Leonard Avenue in Saint Louis, Missouri, circa 1915. Although motor vehicles carried mail in Saint Louis as early as 1911, horse power predominated in the first half of the decade. In November 1915, the Saint Louis Post Office became one of the first in the United States to own and operate its own motor vehicles, when it received a fleet of 42 trucks. Five years later its fleet had more than doubled, to 108. The introduction of Parcel Post in 1913 led to a greater need for delivery vehicles, since the mail became heavier and bulkier. Motor vehicles were more expensive than horse-drawn vehicles, but could carry more and travel further.
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Parcel Post wagons, ca. 1915
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Government mail truck, 1915
A driver and city carrier pose for a photograph in one of the first postal-owned mail trucks in 1915, in front of the Washington, D.C., Post Office (currently the home of the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum). That office was the first to get its own fleet of trucks, with its first six trucks purchased from the White Motor Car Company in 1914. Previously, its mail transportation had been performed by private companies on a contract basis. One of the advantages of postal-owned trucks was their versatility. Whereas the use of contracted vehicles was restricted to precise contract terms, postal-owned trucks could fill needs as they arose. Thus the same vehicle could be used to collect and dispatch mail, transport mail between facilities, deliver Parcel Post, and even transport letter carriers to their delivery routes, saving the cost of streetcar fare. Each of these first trucks had sideways folding jump seats in the back. The largest of the trucks could carry 15 men and was used primarily to transport letter carriers to their routes.
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Government mail truck, 1915
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Horse-drawn sled, ca. 1920
A star route carrier on the McCall to Warren, Idaho, mail route rests on the back of his sled circa 1920. The horses wore special snow shoes. Star route carriers, who worked under contract with the Post Office Department, used any means necessary to get the mail through, including boats, sleds, snowshoes, and skis. Today’s contractors use trucks, tractor trailers, and automobiles, or whatever it takes — from mule trains into the Grand Canyon to seaplanes in Alaska.
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Horse-drawn sled, ca. 1920
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Automobile, 1930
A rural carrier delivers a letter to a customer in York County, Maine, on August 26, 1930. Rural carriers, who purchased their own vehicles, experimented with automobiles on their routes as early as 1902. By 1904 at least one carrier regularly used a “horseless mail wagon” on a 25-mile route in California. By 1920, many rural carriers had switched to motor vehicles; the carriers’ magazine R.F.D. News continued to advertise horse-drawn wagons through the 1920s.
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Automobile, 1930
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Jeep, 1950s
Jeeps were used for mail delivery by rural carriers in the 1940s. In the 1950s, right-hand drive models were introduced for city carriers on suburban routes. Jeeps remained in general use through the late 1980s, when they began to be replaced by longer-lasting and more efficient long-life vehicles.
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Jeep, 1950s
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Highway Post Office, 1953
In 1941, Highway Post Offices (HPOs) made their first appearance when a route was established between Washington, D.C., and Harrisonburg, Virginia, serving more than 20 intermediate Post Offices. Highway Post Offices were similar in function to Railway Post Offices and were created in part due to the decline of mail-carrying trains. Like railway mail clerks aboard trains, clerks on board HPOs sorted mail en route for transfer to Post Offices and connecting routes. The number of HPOs peaked in 1959, at 172. The spread of mechanized mail sorting facilities in the 1960s and 1970s gradually rendered hand-sorting of mail by traveling clerks obsolete. The last HPO rolled between Cincinnati and Cleveland, Ohio, on June 30, 1974.
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Highway Post Office, 1953
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Sit-stand truck, ca. 1964
Sit-stand trucks, like the 6-cylinder, ½ ton, 1963 Studebaker shown above, were first tested in the mid-1950s. The trucks were part of the Post Office Department’s effort to motorize suburban delivery routes. The right-hand drive trucks had a folding seat so carriers could stand while driving on short runs.
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Sit-stand truck, ca. 1964
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Mailster, 1964
In the 1950s, the Post Office Department began motorizing city delivery routes. With vehicles, letter carriers could deliver more mail, more quickly. The 1964 Westcoaster mailster pictured here, with a top safe speed of 35 miles per hour, could haul 500 pounds of mail, including large parcels, versus the 35 pound limit of a foot carrier. The number of mailsters in use peaked in 1966, at about 17,700.
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Mailster, 1964
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Mailster, 1965
Although beloved by children, three-wheeled mailsters, like this Cushman model, were disliked by many carriers, who experienced frequent breakdowns and considered the vehicles unsafe. Strong winds or sudden moves could cause the top-heavy vehicles to tip over. Their lightweight construction offered little protection in the event of accidents. And heaters, installed for carriers’ comfort beginning in 1964, introduced the threat of carbon monoxide poisoning. The Department began phasing out mailsters in 1967; by the early 1970s they had largely been replaced by Jeeps.
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Mailster, 1965
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Bicycle, 1973
City Letter Carrier Robert W. Miller delivers mail by bicycle in Coal City, Illinois, in 1973. Carriers used bicycles to deliver the mail in some cities as early as the 1890s. Miller started using his in 1951 when he began delivering mail in Coal City.
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