What was the color of the corner mailbox in the early 50’s? Blue or Green?
As I try to remember back then, I believe they were blue, the green ones were for the carrier drop to pickup mail for the route. Maybe a mail carrier will set the record straight.
Depends where you lived: around here they were red, eh? [swg] [(-D]
Wayne
Ya. They are definitely red.[swg]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_colours_of_post_boxes.svg
Starting in 1945, US Postal Service boxes were painted Olive Drab - with left over Army paint from WWII.
On 4 July 1955 the Postmaster decreed that boxes would be painted red, white and blue. This translated as red top section, blue bottom section and white lettering. in 1971 the red top went away, leaving the present blue with white lettering scheme.
It’s entirely possible that pre-WWII dark green boxes would have survived into the early '50s. I recall that the paint was very durable.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with red mail boxes)
In the 1950s regular post office drop boxes were indeed olive GREEN. Blue ones, sometimes with stripes I suppose were a later invention. After that only storage boxes were painted green. Now a days, storage boxes are a thing of the past (mostly) since the postman’s truck is his storage box. That was not always the case. Once upon a time the postman was always on foot, and mail was delivered by truck to the drop boxes for pick up by your local mail man.
Or in my case Mail Babe!. Ya definitely Mail Babe.[:-,] Oh to be in my twenties again.
World War II era mailbox in olive drab, courtesy of Universal Studios prop department for use in set-dressing North Beach, Corpus Christi, Texas for a WWII scene for the movie Raggedy Man, filmed December 1980.
The board in the mail slot is to warn that this is not for actual deposit of mail.
Also note 48-star flag.
Likewise I believe the olive drab ones lasted quite a while. I remember putting mail in the OD boxes in the late 60s/early 70s, though of course our town was so small and backward, we didn’t get hippies until 1976 when I was a junior in high school.
I remember them being olive drab in the early and mid 50’s. The only difference between the drop box and the storage box was that the storage box didn’t have a tilt door to put the mail into. They were usually side by side. I still see some OD storage boxes downtown in the city. I think filled by a truck and delivered to the many businesses and offices along the street by a person on foot. Keeps a truck from taking up a valuable downtown parking space while the delivery person hoofs it from office to office.
Have fun,
Richard
Hi,
I lived in Chicago during the 50s… The repainting to red/white/blue took place in the late '50s and of course was not instantaneous in happening. I believe using an olive drab color will be your best bet for the look and the image of the time.
Here is a good reference source:
http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/collection-box-colors.pdf
Rich
Broadway Lion Not all the green boxes have disappeared there are a couple at the corner of Broadway and Duane in NYC.
As noted, olive drab was standard for many years. I think the regular mailboxes changed to blue in the sixties. As noted, drop boxes (sorted mail that the carrier could pick up and deliver, so he didn’t have to lug as much mail around with him) have remained green.
I don’t remember seeing red white and blue mailboxes?? Interesting in that my dad was a letter carrier 1943-74 so I usually was aware of stuff like that. But then I don’t remember when “STOP” signs were yellow either.
Yes, so if you ant to “Set a Time” in the 1950s you would use an olive green collection box, AND a us flag with 48 stars!
ROAR
Unless you’re modeling 1959, in which case you’d need a 49 star U.S. Flag.
I remember Red & Blue mail boxes with white lettering US MAIL on them.
Growing up in Magnolia, a New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, during the 70s the drop boxes were all blue and the storage boxes olive.
Chuck has already pointed out the time line for the color changes, I just thought that I would point out that until the mid to late 50s my town (all of one square mile) did not have letter carriers or home delivery. My grandmother said part of the daily routine for the ladies was to walk to the center of town to pick up your mail at the Post Office and your groceries for the day (There was actually a bakery, a grocer called “Quaker Friendly Food Stores”, and “Nick and John’s”, a soda fountain plus a little more).
Other things that lasted well into the fifties in my home town included coal fired furnaces in most homes (coal delivery), ice boxes instead of refrigerators (ice delivery), and daily milk delivery.
Chris, everything you mentioned reminds me of growing up in the 60s. One building that housed the grocery, barber shop, post office, café, and drug store. Cold Christmas Eves with 20 kids and 40 or more adults crammed into my aunt’s small house and a coal stove cooking away in the middle of the floor. Funny how not of us kids every got seriously burned on it. Never happen today. Perhaps the funniest though is one of my best friends dad ran the Red & White grocery store. For some reason a group of us kids decided a soda fight would be fun. Shake up the bottles, and then pop the lid trying to spray each other. For some unknown reason his dad wasn’t too happy with us when he discovered how many cases we had sprayed out. [}:)]
I wonder what color this mail box is?
http://www.shorpy.com/node/15529
Click on the image to blow it up.
Pete