Friday, October 27, 2006 11:19 PM CDT
Rural Free Delivery: Similar service for all postal patrons
By HAL MALEHORN
For nearly 300 years of American history the delivery of mail favored urban patrons. After all, from early in this nation’s colonial era post roads ran through villages and towns, where the mail was deposited by post riders or by stagecoach at local taverns or stores.
Later, in conjunction with the organization of a federal government, post offices were established in towns to serve townspeople. And by 1863 many city dwellers were getting mail delivered to their doors.
But for persons living in outlying reaches all that while, to get one’s mail necessitated a trip into town. However, roads often became impassable, or weather impossible, or time too pressing. Farmers and others who lived at a distance (and who constituted the majority of the nation’s population), sometimes went weeks without letters and newspapers.
At the end of the 19th century all that began to change, for by then the Post Office Department had begun to experiment with delivering mail, without charge, to residents in the countryside. And by 1905 the United States had in place a national system of Rural Free Delivery.
Over the years several political figures claimed they were the true “Father of the RFD.” One of these, John Wanamaker, is due as much credit as any, for, appointed postmaster general in 1889, he applied his proven merchandising skills to the challenge of moving the U.S. mails. During his first two years in office he tried several experiments, one of which would test the feasibility of a free delivery to farmers.
Newspaper publishers had good reason to support the plan, for such a service would bring their publications (and the products of their advertisers) within reach of every farm family. And farmers’ organizations, such as the National Grange, endorsed the idea as well. Unhappily, Congress looked at the cost of the experiment and promptly turned it down.
Still, Congressman Tom Watson managed to get an enabling bill passed, establishing a small-scale experiment; this achievement justified a minor Georgia monument in his honor.
Unhappily, Grover Cleveland’s Postmaster General Wilson Bissell simply ignored the proposal, claiming that if it were carried out, it would bankrupt the nation. Legislators representing rural areas nevertheless pressed their case, claiming that farmers were being discriminated against. But Bissell stood his ground.
Eventually Bissell resigned his position, and his successor, William Wilson, reluctantly agreed to implement the experiment, no doubt thinking it the best way to prove how impractical rural delivery actually was. And so, in the summer of 1896 Wilson instructed postal inspectors to lay out routes through the countryside near his hometown in West Virginia. On Oct. 1 of that year, three letter carriers, without any fanfare, rode out to deliver mail.
The next year 86 other pioneer routes, ranging from 16 to 35 miles in length, were scattered throughout 28 states. These were deliberately set up where weather, terrain and sparse populations uninterested in deliveries would provide an acid test. One route lay through rugged Kansas hills; another traversed a Louisiana bayou; and three crossed a Kentucky county that lacked maps and townships -- and even roads. In Sangamon County, Illinois, carriers traveled by horseback along roadways unchanged since Lincoln’s day.
And, as for the receptacles for their mail, farmers chose, among other things, oil cans, lard pails, apple crates, syrup tins and boxes for cigars and soap.
President McKinley’s administration brought to the challenge ardent August Machen, named superintendent of free delivery. Under his rules groups of farmers had to petition for a route, describing their region, and providing a map of their county. Eventually rural postal agents were appointed to lay out these routes instead.
In general, routes were to be at least 25 miles long and serve 100 families. These requirements were sometimes bent to allow for political concerns, for neighborhood disputes, and for the relative importance of selected local residents.
Opposition to the new system sometimes arose from members of the urban community, as city postmasters displayed hostility at the notion of carriers usurping their erstwhile prerogatives. And local merchants feared for their trade; after all, farmers who would no longer come into town Saturdays to pick up their mail would thus spend less money in city stores.
Nevertheless, the experiments continued, sometimes conducted on contract by local bidders. These contracted routes conducted by private carriers were known as “star” routes, for the asterisk that indicated their nature.
Local jealousies abounded, and competition for rural routes grew fierce. In Illinois, for example, farmers around Owaneco wondered why Pana and Taylorville were assigned rural deliveries, and they weren’t. Some farmers demanded that their mail be brought to their front doors -- just like city dwellers -- instead of being placed in a box erected at the foot of lengthy lanes.
In the horse-and-buggy days, the letter carrier was expected to provide his own conveyance. Eventually the standard “Postman” carriage, produced in Indiana by the Delphi Wagon Works, was widely used in every state.
The carrier was someone who lived in the territory he served. And he had to be of a good character. By 1912 he was taking the same civil service examinations that city carriers took.
Fulfilling every postal service customarily provided by the town post offices, the rural carrier was also sometimes asked to do favors: write letters for patrons, address envelopes, make change, transport produce for sale, purchase goods in town, and even feed the chickens and water the cows! In return, farmers helped carriers by clearing roads of snow, and sometimes providing hay and grain for the horses, along with food and gossip for the carrier.
Ultimately, of course, the automobile took over the duties of distribution, and routes were lengthened accordingly. After that the carrier had only snow, rain, heat, gloom of night -- and rutted roads -- to contend with. But mailboxes became standardized and duties were regularized, so carriers thereafter only delivered mail.
No longer was any family isolated. One farm wife, grateful for her daily newspaper and letters from friends and kin, spoke for millions: “Thank goodness, thank God -- and thank the government -- for Rural Free Delivery!”
Hal Malehorn portrays Alfred Balch at Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site.
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