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Mail Delivery Service
What suggested this topic
Announcement to end Saturday mail delivery
February 6, 2013 - U.S. Postal Service announced that it plans to stop
delivering mail on Saturdays starting the week of Aug. 5 but will continue
delivering packages.
Unless forbidden to do so by Congress
Post offices would remain open on
Saturdays, however hours likely would be reduced at thousands of smaller
locations
Delivery Service Today
Kearney Post Office February 20, 2013
Melissa Thienel Kearney Postmaster
Kearney 27 city & rural routes plus
2 Gibbon routes
Amherst 2 rural routes covering
Amherst, Miller & Riverdale areas
Elm Creek 2 rural routes
Pleasanton 1 rural route
Ravenna 1 city & 3 rural routes
Shelton 1 rural route
In the towns of the county where
there is a post office, rural routes deliver to the residents in town who do
not have a box at the post office
Those with boxes go pick up their mail at the Post Office
Origins of Postal Service
First postal service in America - February 1692
Grant from King William and Queen
Mary to Thomas Neale
He could charge rates the planters
agree to pay
Neale got to keep the money
Not much business or government
correspondence between colonies.
Most mail was between counting houses
and government offices in London
Revolutionary War
Philadelphia (seat of the Continental
Congress), the information hub of the new nation.
A postal system was necessary
Journalists took the lead a way to get their newspapers out to the 13
states
United States Post Office (USPO)
created July 26, 1775, by 2nd Continental Congress.
Benjamin Franklin first head [first Postmaster General]
Constitution Adopted - 1792
Constitution empowered Congress "To
establish post offices and post roads".
United States Post Office Department (USPOD)
Used a hub-and-spoke system, with Washington as the hub and chief sorting
center
By 1869, with 27,000 local post
offices
Changed to sorting mail enroute in railroad mail cars
Free delivery began in the larger
cities in 1863
Delivery systems
Use the current popular mode of
transportation
Stage coaches, horse drawn vehicles, horseback
Pony Express before transcontinental
telegraph
Railroad
Air Planes - May 5, 1918 Mail
Delivery Started
First route from New York to Washington, army aviators
Trucks
Destination post offices, not to
individual residences
In Buffalo County [from post office to post office]
Stage coach route along the Mormon
Trail & Kearney & Black Hills route
Riders or horse drawn vehicles to
settlements in the county
Railroads UP, B & M, Kearney &
Black Hills RR
Trucks now
Door to Door Delivery
Kearney Delivery
Started October 1, 1889 4
carriers, one in each ward
Delivery Times
Carriers
worked 8 hour days; not necessarily continuous.
3 deliveries
at least one complete route, others could be partial
2-3
collections from mail boxes a day.
Days of delivery
Apparently
Sunday delivery at first
February 15, 1909 - --The Sunday mail carried hundreds of Valentines
But two years later in December 22, 1911 Post Office Open on Sunday
For distribution of mail to those to whom mail is delivered.
Open from 10 a.m. to noon & 5 to 6 p.m.
1931 Still
had afternoon mail delivery
Law passed by Congress to shorten the work week of postal employees to 44
hours.
Each postmaster could decide which afternoon delivery to eliminate.
Many were selecting Saturday afternoons.
Kearney businesses preferred Tuesdays.
And Also
Sledding in the 1890s
--To-day was Carnival Day for small boys and sleds.
Nearly every vehicle on the streets had sleds tied to them with a boy or
boys perched thereon.
One dray had eight sleds tied on behind.
2 sleds were tied to the dray and then the 1st boy pulled the 2nd sled, the
2nd the 3rd & so on.
--Several have come very near being
run over by teams coming up behind them.
--a couple of hand sleds, one behind
the other and connected with a 2x8 plank, rolling off in the snow and having
more fun than a whole box of monkeys
--The teamster had to be swift and
adroit to get down Central Avenue without a sled attached
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