No, not that kind of postal - rather the original meaning of going postal.
In December 1903, the Bank of Vernal, Utah opened its doors for business, It was the first bank in that part of Utah and included luxury features like bullet-proof glass enclosed counters. The bank did a flourishing business and within thirteen years needed expansion to accommodate their growing customer base.
The bank president and others drew up plans for a new building to be located across the street from the original. This bank would be made of brick. Since there were no brick makers near Vernal, the closest brick kiln was in Salt Lake City, Utah, a distance of 150 miles. Having the bricks trucked in was cost-prohibitive so the building committee explored other possible methods of getting the bricks from Salt Lake City to Vernal, Utah. It was soon discovered that if they followed the postal regulations, the bricks could be sent by mail for one-quarter the price. The regulations stated that no package could be mailed if it weighed over 50 pounds and no more than 500 pounds addressed to the same person. The postage rate was only $1.05 per hundred pounds of bricks. Postal officials carefully scrutinized their regulations and could not find a valid reason why they should reject the shipments. To add irony to the matter, postal services could not send the packages by direct route. Instead, following postal protocol, the mail route was over a tortuous 427 miles from Salt Lake to Mack, Colorado by D & R G Railroad, then to Watson on the narrow gauge Uintah Railway, and finally the last 65 miles to Vernal by wagon freight. Trust the government to take the long route!
Soon, word of the bank that was sent by mail spread throughout the country. Farmers began shipping their crop harvests by mail, manufacturers started shipping their furniture, etc. by mail. The United States Post Office officials investigated t
Well, considering the fact that the last two structure kits I bought arrived in a lock box courtesy of the USPS, I guess there really is a prototype for everything…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with kitbashed structures)
Around the same time as the bank story, someone worked out that when sending their daughter alone to visit relatives on the train, it would be cheaper to send the little girl as an express parcel than it would be to buy her a ticket. So they weighed her and Dad paid the express charge, and they put a luggage ticket on her and she made the relatively short trip in the baggage car.
When I moved back from Germany in 1974, excess household goods were 50 cents a pound, but I could mail 70 lb footlockers for $4.95. I mailed several footlockers, the postal clerk was glad to see me finally go home.
Thanks for sharing. On (north end of ) there was a small company town of with a large gold smelter. It was well known for its tall smokestack and their post office which shipped more mail by weight (gold) than any post office in the Now I know why.
And in the proud American tradition of fooling the system, in the early days of Model Railroader, which was also the middle of the Great Depression, Al Kalmbach was strapped for cash and offered a lifetime subscription for relatively little money … someone took him up on the deal and enterred the subscription in the name of his then-2 year old daughter! I wonder if that subscription is still in place!
This is about not using the trains but, a contractor bid a job to build a school in a remote Alaskan village and found that it was cheaper to mail each brick individually via airplane to the village rather than charter a plane to deliver his material.
When I worked for a oil wholesaler in Alaska, we would mail cases of oil to the villages as it was the cheapest way to get the oil there. The Post Office would drop a trailer at our warehouse for us to load with oil and attached postage, and would pickup the trailer to take to the airport.
The Selby Smelter operated for 85 years but closed in 1970 because of pollution issues. Thousands of tons of metals – lead, zinc, gold, and silver were shipped from the Selby docks to worldwide markets. In 1885, the first year of operation, the plant produced $30,000 in gold and 30,000 ounces of silver each day. It was using 400 tons of coal per month from the mines at Nortonville and Somersville, 20 miles or so east of Selby. (Those coal mines closed shortly after the end of the 19th century: these low-grade-coal mines couldn’t compete when Washington state coal mines opened.) Lead and zinc smelting became the principal business. A cartridge factory was added. In 1907 a shot tower was built. In 1910, a photo shows a sailing ship unloading coke for the smelter. In 1953 a zinc fuming plant for producing zinc oxide was constructed. The smelter had a smoke stack which was the highest in the western U.S. The smelter was located along the southern shore of the western entrance of Carquinez Strait, with the SP Overland Route mainline running immediately adjacent on the inland side of the plant. There were several railroad spurs serving the plant. Selby, a company town was located close by, southwest of the plant. The town is gone.