This motorized car was tested for carrying mail in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1899.
Side view of a Columbia autocar tested in Baltimore, Maryland in 1906
Row of screen trucks used to carry the mail.
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With 190,000 vehicles currently on the road, the United States Postal Service has the largest vehicular fleet
in the world. These vehicles drive 847 million miles a year. That is a far cry from the way things were when
the first fragile looking motor car was tested by the Post Office Department in 1899.
The first official use of gasoline-powered vehicles to collect city mail began in Baltimore in late 1906.
A pair of Columbia "autocars" were used in the test. Each had a special compartment holding two mail sacks
mounted on the back of the front seat. The tests were successful, and motorized mail vehicles were
introduced elsewhere. By the end of 1912, they were being used in Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis, San Francisco,
and four other cities.
Postal officials have used steam, electric and gasoline-powered vehicles alike, and in about the same proportion
as they were used personally, and commercially. Electric vehicles, for example, were almost entirely confined to
cities or to interurban service where distances were not great and the roads were good.
The Post Office Department faced its first motor vehicle-related crisis in 1913 when Parcel Post was
inaugurated on January 1, 1913. It was totally unprepared for the public's response to the new package
service. In the first few days of service it was swamped with parcels, deluged by four million packages
during the first week of service.
Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock quickly realized what he was up against. He hastily issued a call for
bids for 100 additional government-owned mail trucks to augment the dozens of rented trucks and government-owned
mail wagons that he confessed were "already taxed to their utmost capacity."
Mail trucks were often loaded well beyond there capacity. Such overloading often resulted in the temporary loss
of mailbags in transit. As a safeguard, a laborer often rode on top of the mailbags so that any that dropped off
could be promptly recovered. This problem was not confined to the Post Office Department. The tendency to
overload commercial vehicles was a common practice during much of the first quarter of this century.
The story of mail truck service can be found in the Museum's On the Road exhibit.
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Front and back of the Columbia autocars tested in Baltimore, Maryland in 1906
Parcel Post Service wagons were quickly overwhelmed by the popularity of the new service.
Overloaded mail truck used by a mail contract carrier in Cody, Wyoming
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