On this day in 1971, the NRLCA and other postal unions entered into our first-ever contract with the US Postal Service, just days after the USPS formed as a result of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. Check out these historic pages from the National Rural Letter Carrier magazine that summer! #postalhistory
The RFD is a government mail service, where mail carriers travel rural routes to deliver and pickup mail from roadside mail boxes. As of 2022, the USPS has around 133,000 mail carriers serving around 80,000 rural mail routes. Many people even today have rural free mail delivery rather than paying a monthly fee for a … Read more
Rural free delivery, a United States service providing free mail delivery to residents of rural areas, was first introduced as an official offering of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in 1896.
Born in 1873 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Mamie Thomas grew up in a time when women’s opportunities were limited. However, she was determined to make a difference and break through the barriers that kept her and other women from achieving their goals. After marrying John Thomas, she moved to the small community of Beechwood, Mississippi, where … Read more
On October 1, 1896, rural free delivery (RFD) service began in Charles Town, Halltown, and Uvilla in West Virginia, Postmaster General Wilson’s home state. Within a year, 44 routes were operating in 29 states. Just five days before Christmas in 1899, the Post Office Department decided to experiment with extending RFD across an entire county. … Read more
A rural carrier in Bennington County, VT, was the first to deliver mail by car on a rural route today in 1912. — Postal Museum (@PostalMuseum) August 7, 2014 Twitter / PostalMuseum: A rural carrier in Bennington …. Shortly thereafter rural mail might have been delivered in one of these Rural Free Delivery vehicles.