The Post Box

In Europe private letter boxes were not popular until the late 1800’s.  They had been in use in Paris though since the late 1700’s.

Britain first started encouraging letterboxes from 1849 so that they could deliver mail more efficiently.  Until then, letterboxes took the form of a wall post box which was used for forwarding mail, not for receiving it.

In North America they made their debut in 1863 when postal carriers started delivering mail to home addresses.  Before that postal workers had to knock and wait for an answer while resulted in many lost hours per day.

This was taken one step further with the advent of curbside letter boxes, especially in rural areas.  This further helped expediate the delivery of mail.  Before the introduction of free rural mail delivery, many had no access to their mail unless they picked it up at their local post office.  It was only at this time that curbside letter boxes became popular.

Mailbox standards

Farmers and those living in rural areas used whatever they had at hand for their mail delivery and often tins, baskets and crude wooden boxes were seen lining the road.  In 1923 the US post office made it mandatory for every person to own and erect a standard mailbox.

Some curbside mailboxes come complete with a system which was designed to inform the postal worker that there was mail they needed to collect.  This system consisted of a flag which was raised.  The postal workers also raised the flag when they wanted to inform the recipient that they had mail waiting in their box.

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