I remember how the Post Office once worked

[street]

I see a few posts about the US Postal Service now and then and it brings back old memories how they operated at one time. Growing up and really not that many years ago in small town America you didn't have an address. The mail got to you by having your name on the letter, the town and the zip code. There was no physical address and in these small towns everyone knew each other and you had to have a mail box at the post office and had to go there to get the mail. No delivery to the door. LOL

Does anyone remember those days?

 

[Bir48die]

The house we bought a few years ago has a mail slot in the door. Freaks us out when the mailman stealthy delivers our mail. The days of knowing your mail person unfortunately are over.

 

[Car-Guy]

I see a few posts about the US Postal Service now and then and it brings back old memories how they operated at one time. Growing up and really not that many years ago in small town America you didn't have an address. The mail got to you by having your name on the letter, the town and the zip code. There was no physical address and in these small towns everyone knew each other and you had to have a mail box at the post office and had to go there to get the mail. No delivery to the door. LOL

Does anyone remember those days?

I don't actually remember that but in the rural area where I live, I have a PO Box "and" a rural route mail box at my physical address. They deliver all my mail (both PO Box addressed and physical addressed) to the PO Box. When I walk into the Post Office to pickup a package they know me by my PO Box number. I'm surprised they don't greet me by saying, hello Mr. Box XXXX.

 

[NanoSour]

I remember it fondly. We moved from the big city to a small rural town of about 1700 residents when I was in 7th grade. I remember having to stop by the post office after school to pick up the mail for my mom. Dad would pick it up if he got home from work before 5PM, which is when the PO closed. Out post off had they small boxes with a combination lock on them that you still see in many PO's that are still in older buildings.

Far cry from today's mail service that includes white and brown bread-box trucks stopping by on an almost daily basis. At least at this time of year.

 

[braumeister]

No rural experience, but in the big city things were certainly different.

When I was a kid, ZIP codes had not yet been invented. We got two mail deliveries every day, morning and afternoon. In the two or three weeks before Christmas, there were as many as five deliveries a day.

 

[meierlde]

No rural experience, but in the big city things were certainly different.

When I was a kid, ZIP codes had not yet been invented. We got two mail deliveries every day, morning and afternoon. In the two or three weeks before Christmas, there were as many as five deliveries a day.

Note that many cities had zones way back when (essentially the equivalent of the last digit of the zip code) so that sorters did not have to look up which route or even post office in a city the address was assigned to (since back then you had to look in a book, as computer searching had not yet arrived. )

 

[ERD50]

No rural experience, but in the big city things were certainly different.

When I was a kid, ZIP codes had not yet been invented. We got two mail deliveries every day, morning and afternoon. In the two or three weeks before Christmas, there were as many as five deliveries a day.

Yes, this would be highly dependent on the locality.

I remember reading the Sherlock Holmes stories, and they'd talk about getting the morning and afternoon mail - two deliveries a day. Seemed odd to me, like they were more advanced then than we are now? But then my Mom said they got mail 2x a day in Chicago when she was a kid.

-ERD50

 

[Sunset]

We have a cabin in a rural area, and we didn't even have a post box.
I haven't even been in the post office for over a decade, as we don't (I hope) get mail there.
But when would stay there all summer, we had mail redirected to the cabin.
Only it had no delivery.

We would just go up to the counter and ask any mail for Jones on X island ? , oh and I might as well get the mail for neighbors too, the Harrison's, Smith's, Johnson, and Williams.

They would hand it all over for us to bring back to the neighbors. It was a nice trusting time.

 

[braumeister]

Note that many cities had zones way back when (essentially the equivalent of the last digit of the zip code) so that sorters did not have to look up which route or even post office in a city the address was assigned to (since back then you had to look in a book, as computer searching had not yet arrived. )

Yes, we had two-digit zones in NYC, so the bottom line on my address was
Brooklyn 29, NY

When they came out with the current system it got the acronym for Zone Improvement Plan.

 

[Walt34]

Nope. I grew up in suburbia outside Washington, D.C. and we had a street address. No zip code though. Mail was delivered once per day.

 

[38Chevy454]

When they came out with the current system it got the acronym for Zone Improvement Plan.

I learned something today, never did know what the origin of "zip" code was.

Speaking of old vs new post office, all the new neighborhoods have the common set of post boxes at one common location. You have to go to that location and open your box to get your mail. Whereas when I was younger we had the box on the house and the mailman (or mail lady) walked up to each house. The in-between is having the individual box at the street where it is accessible by a drive-up mail vehicle.

 

[grasshopper]

Ha, ha, ha, we still have an old time post office

Small box doors with combination lock, check

Postmaster that knows you by name, check

Will call you to say a neighbor is there, should they pick up your mail, check

Yea, this is all normal for us, would not have it anyother way.

 

[aja8888]

When we lived in Connecticut in Southbury on Bucks Hill Road we didn't have a house number. We just put our last name on the mailbox and we got our mail.

The guy who delivered the mail was also our entire police department (Constable). He also did the finish carpentry in our house when I built it.

 

[athena53]

Speaking of old vs new post office, all the new neighborhoods have the common set of post boxes at one common location. You have to go to that location and open your box to get your mail. Whereas when I was younger we had the box on the house and the mailman (or mail lady) walked up to each house. The in-between is having the individual box at the street where it is accessible by a drive-up mail vehicle.

Yeah, that's a definite degradation in service. My house in NJ was built in the 1950s and had a mailbox at the door. Loved it. Does anyone know- what forced the current trends? In other words, why do builders/developers cluster all the mail boxes together in a common location? Is it that much cheaper than putting individual mail boxes at each door, or does the Post Office require it?

 

[mystang52]

Yes, we had two-digit zones in NYC, so the bottom line on my address was
Brooklyn 29, NY

When they came out with the current system it got the acronym for Zone Improvement Plan.

Hey, I was also Brooklyn 29, NY. Maybe we were close neighbors. I lived on Batchelder St.

 

[Scrapr]

Yeah, that's a definite degradation in service. My house in NJ was built in the 1950s and had a mailbox at the door. Loved it. Does anyone know- what forced the current trends? In other words, why do builders/developers cluster all the mail boxes together in a common location? Is it that much cheaper than putting individual mail boxes at each door, or does the Post Office require it?

Much much cheaper for the USPS to deliver to a group of boxes rather than ea individual home. I see mailboxes on the street unsecured and anybody can open them and i think "How Quaint" but not for me. If I had a mailbox like that I would get a PO Box.

We must be at the end of the line for our mail lady. Many many times she is loading the community box after 5:00 pm and sometimes around 7:00 pm. USPS employee too not a contract carrier

 

[athena53]

Much much cheaper for the USPS to deliver to a group of boxes rather than ea individual home.

I know that, but let me ask the question another way. If a developer built a new neighborhood and put, say, mail slots in each door instead of a cluster of mailboxes, would the Post Office refuse to deliver mail?

 

[Walt34]

I know that, but let me ask the question another way. If a developer built a new neighborhood and put, say, mail slots in each door instead of a cluster of mailboxes, would the Post Office refuse to deliver mail?

We have a member here who works at a post office so hopefully he'll chime in. I'm not sure if it is required by the P.O., but I'm pretty sure it is encouraged because of the cost savings to the P.O. Our house was built in 2002 and we have a mailbox on a post out by the driveway, and by that time I had seen housing developments with the cluster mailboxes.

However, our house and many others were a "add on" to a development that had been in place for ~15 years so perhaps we were "grandfathered" in to the old system.

Gotta go now, the mail carrier just delivered the mail.

 

[GrayHare]

Around these 'burbs it's getting progressively more difficult to find an outbound mail box. Boxes that had been at busy street corners or shopping areas have been removed. Other than at the Post Office itself, I know of only one outbound box located within a five-mile radius.

 

[REWahoo]

Around these 'burbs it's getting progressively more difficult to find an outbound mail box. Boxes that had been at busy street corners or shopping areas have been removed. Other than at the Post Office itself, I know of only one outbound box located within a five-mile radius.

I think all neighborhood cluster boxes accept outgoing mail. Is that an option?

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

My dad was a career postal clerk, first in downtown Chicago and later at the city's Kedzie-Grace station, ZIP code 60618.

When I was very young I remember him getting up from a nap at 9:50 p.m. to prepare for the start of his midnight shift. He had a daytime side j*b as well, because Post Office pay was notoriously skimpy. I imagine that's when I had LBYM ingrained in me.

In the early '70s, Nixon had the Post Office reorganized into the USPS after a strike for higher pay and better working conditions. That's when Dad's annual wages surpassed the 5-figure mark for the first time, IIRC.

While going to college in a small Wisconsin town, Dad suggested I apply for a postal j*b. I was toiling at a foundry at the time, so the USPS sounded pretty sweet! Back then, workers started part-time as substitutes, which ended up pretty convenient for this college kid.

It turned out there was an opening for a substitute rural carrier in a nearby town. The j*b was for a full day every Saturday plus filling in when the regular carrier took his vacation weeks. He made a point of taking off a lot of days around the holidays, when Christmas card and catalog volume was at its heaviest -- which was fine with me, because that's when I was between semesters.

In addition to mail, we also still had a fair amount of parcel post. I remember delivering an entire car exhaust system once. Fortunately, the shipments of live chicks that arrived every spring had to be picked up by the addressees.

As a rural carrier, I was kind of a quasi-contractor and had to provide my own vehicle. I had a pretty motley series of motor transports back then, but I remember breaking down only once. Another sub rural carrier had some early-'60s Renault Dauphines that seemed to serve him well -- of course, he had more than one!

I kept the j*b for three years, when I graduated and sought an opportunity to begin my "professional" career. Coincidentally, a lifer in the local station retired as I was leaving, opening up a position that I chose not to pursue. I second-guessed myself on that decision from time to time over ensuing years, but 40 years later I'm happy with the path I took.

 

[Alan]

Our mail comes through a slot in our door and we know our mailman, often chat to him and always say hello when we are out and about and see him walking the streets.

We have a mailbox for outgoing mail at the bottom of our street and a post office about half a mile away.

 

[Hermit]

I had a package ordered from Amazon sent USPS last week. It was shipped on Dec 7. The USPS tracking site proudly announces that it was "Delivered" on Dec 15. Unfortunately, the delivery point was the the shipping point. The USPS refuses to recognize my address and does not deliver packages let alone mail. The shipper promised to resend using UPS or FedEx so I should get the package next week. I have Amazon trained to only use UPS or FedEx, but not other sellers doing business and their own shipping through Amazon.

No fond memories of USPS. Then or now.

 

[Mr._Graybeard]

More and more of our UPS shipments are being delivered to their final destination (our house) by USPS. Mostly they're smaller packages, but occasionally the carrier will surprise me with a big honkin' box weighing 15 pounds or more.

That includes Sunday Amazon deliveries; the local USPS keeps a carrier on the job just to deliver parcels on Sunday.

 

[meierlde]

Note that cluster mailboxes also have locks on them, as well as parcel lockers for medium sized parcels. No more leaving parcels on the doorstep where they can walk away. Further the lock on the main mailbox makes it more difficult to steal mail. The last few years I lived in Houston I arranged to have checks delivered to bank branch to pick up due to mail theft problems.
Note that with the cluster mail box if one is handicapped you can apply to the post office for door delivery.
BTW the cost savings by switching from door to door to cluster is about $195 per box per year :https://www.newhomesource.com/guide/articles/what-to-know-about-cluster-mailboxes