Yesteryears:Dec 5, 1995 Vol 5 No 25
U.S. POSTAGE BULK RATE PERMIT NO. 119 SALEM, OH 44460 Vol 5, 'J\[o. 25 'Iuesrfay, 'lJecember 5, 1995 Section of 'The Safem 'J\[ews • rs s 1 rl st I From beginning, officials wanted to transport mail farther and faster By Vicki Moeser Smithsonian News F THE U.S. POSTAL SER-· I vice had a motto - which it does not - it might well be "faster and faster, and farther and farther," says James H. Bruns, director of the Smithso nian's National Postal Museum in Washington D.C. America's postal system has been obsessed with speed and distance, he says. "To carry the mail faster and farther over the years the Post Office Depart ment has experimented with many innovations, such as bal loons, rail lines, streetcars, i~~~~--..~.;~~~~;S;~~:~~ buses, pneumatic tubes, heli copters, rockets, satellites and ~e horse 1Yas the vital link. in th~ US. postal service through the years, from mail delivery to rural homes like the farm of motorcars." And, he adds, Eli Taylor m West Township to maccessible places in the west. animals. For the first 200 years of its In all fairness, Bruns adds, ladelphia and Pittsburgh on a Steamship Co. to carry mail anxious not to allow Caiifornia, existence, the pace of America's slow service was not always two-week schedule. from New York to Panama, with its vast gold resources, to postal system was largely the carrier's fault. "Horses were Statistically, in 1791, roughly where it was taken by horse be wooed by the South. "The determined by the speed of forever losing shoes, coaches nine-tenths of America's mail back or rail across the isthmus, Pony Express was the perfect horses.
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