Parcel delivery or mail couriers are a history that dates back to the earliest civilizations. There's proof of momentous postal frameworks in antiquated Persia, India, and China.
Around 2000 B.C., the earliest evidence of mail can be found in Ancient Egypt. The pharaohs were the only ones who had access to the postal service, and they used couriers to send instructions across the state's territory.
Between 550 and 330 BCE, the Achaemenid Persians used a system of horseback couriers to deliver. A message could take anywhere from seven to nine days to reach Sardis via the Royal Road. Mail was sent to everyone in the Persian Empire, just like it was in Ancient Egypt: The postal system could only be utilized by the king and other powerful leaders.
In 500 BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote: These couriers are able to swiftly complete their scheduled rounds despite snow, rain, heat, and darkness.
He was talking about the Persian postal system, which he admired greatly. You might also recognize this as the unofficial slogan and motto of the US Postal Service.
Cursus Publicus, the Roman Empire's courier and transportation service, was established much later, around 20 BCE. The Roman road network was traveled by messengers at an average speed of about 50 miles per day, according to scholars. Impressive!
Pony Express Fast-forward a little bit, and Pony Express is probably one of the most storied mail services in history. Pony Express, like Cursus Publicus, was an American express mail service that used relays of horse-drawn riders to travel nearly 2,000 miles between Missouri and California.
Because horseback riders would travel between stations at a breakneck pace, Pony Express reduced the time it took for messages to travel between the east and west coasts of the United States to about ten days. It has been documented that the youngest rider was only 14 years old because speed was the primary objective. As a result, younger and smaller men, similar to modern horseracing jockeys, were frequently the hires of choice.
The service was extremely prompt; One mail bag was the only one reported lost!
However, despite its status as a legend, Pony Express was a sad financial failure and only existed for 18 months. In the end, it closed its doors in October 1861, having suffered losses in excess of $200,000
Horses quickly disappeared thanks to new technology. In the first half of the 20th century, mail trucks brought carriers to the location where they started their daily walks. However, in the 1950s, the United States Post Office Department began putting carriers behind the wheel in an effort to improve efficiency.
The "Mailster" is the name of this small vehicle with three wheels. Carriers are able to complete longer routes thanks to the extremely light mail delivery van, which can hold approximately 550 pounds of mail in its compartments. According to The Smithsonian, the Mailster made up one third of the post office's vehicle fleet by the beginning of the 1960s.
Sadly, despite their adorableness, the Mailsters did not perform as well as Department officials had hoped. They had been adequately tested in Florida at first, but as soon as they entered other terrain, things started to get worse. Mailsters on snowy routes would stop working in as little as three inches of snow, and the three-wheel design sometimes made the vehicles prone to tipping if they were caught in the wind. Not the best way to handle mail!
Baby via parcel post On January 1, 1913, the United States' post offices began accepting larger packages and parcels via mail. However, since the rules governing what could and could not be sent by mail were murky, families quickly began exceeding the service's capabilities.
One Ohio couple exploited this and made an exceptional conveyance: their child. The boy was given to the mailman after his parents paid 15 cents for stamps and dropped him off at his grandmother's house, about a mile away.
It was used by a lot more low-income families to send their children by mail to relatives all over the country; it was essentially less expensive to purchase the stamps to send a youngster by Railroad Mail than purchase a train ticket. It is essential to keep in mind that the parents were not giving them to a stranger; Back in the day, many families in most rural areas knew their mailman.
In June 1920, First Assistant Postmaster General John C. Koons was forced to deny two applications to mail children because they could not be classified as "harmless live animals" after the loophole was quickly closed.
Even though the methods we use to deliver mail and packages haven't changed much over time, many things have, and despite the rise of technology, there is still a lot of room for improvement when it comes to parcel delivery.
EJ Miller 06/15/23
2:12 pm