Vintage photos trace the unsung genius of the Post Office

From flying sorting centers to delivery by missile, the history of America's postal service is chock full of weird, innovative ideas

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(Image credit: (The Smithsonian National Postal Museum via Flickr)But in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the national mail service was the country's beating heart of innovation.)

(Image credit: An early airmail plane parked next to a U.S. mail truck.)

(Image credit: The Village Tavern, by John Lewis Krimmel, depicts the tavern as mail hub, with a mail carrier (left) walking through the door and a desk for writing in the corner.)

(Image credit: City letter carriers with handcarts used to collect and transport mail.)

(Image credit: A row of one-man mail wagons used to collect mail from city mailboxes.)

(Image credit: Workers at a New York City post office load cannisters of mail into pneumatic tubes.)

(Image credit: Dog sleds transporting mail in Alaska.)

(Image credit: A mail motorcycle in Washington, D.C.)

(Image credit: New York City Postmaster Thomas G. Patten hands Lt. Torrey Webb a bag of letters for one of the first regularly scheduled airmail flights in the U.S.)

(Image credit: Clerks sort mail inside the tight quarters of a Railway Post Office car.)

(Image credit: The first Highway Post Office bus in Strasburg, Virginia.)

(Image credit: A U.S. Navy Regulus I missile, containing mail, is fired from the USS Barbero for the first, and last, official missile mail experiment.)

(Image credit: The "mailster.")

(Image credit: A carrier delivering mail in a right-hand drive van, similar to the ones seen on the road today.)

Kelly Gonsalves
Kelly Gonsalves

Kelly Gonsalves is a sex and culture writer exploring love, lust, identity, and feminism. Her work has appeared at Bustle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and more, and she previously worked as an associate editor for The Week. She's obsessed with badass ladies doing badass things, wellness movements, and very bad rom-coms.

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