History: Rural Free Delivery

The RFD is a government mail service, where mail carriers travel rural routes to deliver and pickup mail from roadside mail boxes. As of 2022, the USPS has around 133,000 mail carriers serving around 80,000 rural mail routes.

Many people even today have rural free mail delivery rather than paying a monthly fee for a post office box and driving long distances to pick up the mail or mail a letter. The rural free delivery, or RFD, was started in 1902. The US Post Office Department began to experiment with the concept as early as 1890, but the implementation was slow, and it was not adopted nationwide until 1902.

Sheridan was one of the first areas where the RFD was established in Wyoming.

This from The Wheatland World, August 17, 1900 – Senator Warren is doing some effective work toward getting the postoffice department to establish a limited number of rural free delivery routes in the state and is working to have a service established at Laramie, Sheridan and Wheatland. Mr. Warren believes the state is entitled to a trial of the rural free delivery system, and rural free delivery system, and in his usual energetic manner la endeavoring to get the department to grant these desired favors.

This from The Sheridan Enterprise August 8, 1916, about some of the history of the RFD. – On the 17th of October 1900, there died, in the city of Lexington a man who had made his mark in public life and left the impress of his personality upon the records of his time. William L. Wilson was the idol of his party in West Virginia and a great and commanding figure in the arena of national life.

Rural Delivery and Its Progress. William L. Wilson was the father of Rural Free Delivery, whose benefits no one can fully describe, for it is without question the most popular administrative measure of the government for years there had been a growing discontent among farmers and the people In the smaller towns at the postal advantages afforded the cities and the more populous communities. They felt themselves deprived of the opportunities and benefits which others enjoyed, and the desire for recognition was outspoken and insistent and could no longer be denied.

On June 9, 1896, the sum of $40,000 was made available, and on October 1. 1896, the first experimental rural delivery was put into operation In Jefferson County, West Virginia. Service was established on three routes simultaneously, one from Charles Town, one from Uvilla, and one from Halltown.

At the close of business June 30, 1915, there were in operation from 18,813 postoffices throughout the country 43,877 rural routes. Up to and including June 30, 1915, 26,080 postoffices were discontinued on account of the establishment of rural delivery, representing a saving to the postal service of $1.613.000 per annum and also a saving of $3,482,000 on account of the discontinuance of star-route service.

The period of greatest activity m the rural service was from 1900 to 1905, the appropriations running from $450, 000 in 1900 to $21,116,000 In 1905.

Extend and Improve Service. This administration has recognized the value of the postal service to the people to a greater extent within the past three years than for any similar period during the last decade. Mail facilities have been established and extended on mail routes in more than ten thousand localities, giving service to approximately 2,500,000 patrons heretofore denied this benefit. Six hundred and fifty-eight thousand families were added to the list from April, 1913, to April. 1916. The elimination of useless and wasteful methods have made it possible to do this and also pay out $4,000,000 more to employees at an actual increased cost of less than $1,500,000 per annum. For twenty years there had been no readjustment of a vast amount of rural service.

What Rural Delivery Has Accomplished. The rural delivery is indeed a boon to the country. Its measureless advantages can not be estimated, nor need the cost of maintenance be considered, for it has broadened the field of industrial opportunity, touched as if with magic power the possibilities of human endeavor, and transformed conditions to a degree almost marvelous. It has brought the printed page, tho great educator of civilization, daily to the home; has brought special delivery almost to the door; has secured good roads and maintains them by official interest and concern; it has attracted the attention of the various states to this question and obtained results; it has made farm lands more valuable and contributed to increased production; it has abridged time by rapid communication; brightened all environment, and made ordinary dull routine interesting and attractive.

Postal carriers used their own vehicles to deliver mail, and this was from The Sheridan Post, March 20, 1902

Sheridan Post, Thursday, July 13 1899 – Rural Delivery Growing in the West Indianapolils, July 11 F.M. Dice, superintendent of the western division of the rural free delivery, opened headquarters at the postoffice building yesterday and help conferences with the several special agents. The agents have made a study of the conditions, inquired into the demand for the services, and say that will the undertaking is largely in its primary stages, it is growing rapidly.

This is from The Sheridan Post, March 8, 1900 –The post office department has ordered that in the cities and towns having free delivery the postal system shall be extended to include house-to-house collections, and the system is also extended to all rural free delivery routes. One of the requirements, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which the citizen must observe is to supply his own mail box. Postmasters are instructed to give information about the boxes and encourage householders to put them up.

The government has made special recommendation of a certain kind of mail box represented in the accompanying cut. This box is a unique contrivance fitted with automatic signal flags so that the passing carrier can see at a glance if there is any mall deposited in it for him to collect.

It is also a receptacle for delivered mail, and a different colored flag apprises the householder when the carrier leaves any mail in the box. One of the flags is white and the other red. The box is to be affixed to a post near the street convenient for the carrier. It is fitted with perfect locks, and when the carrier drops mail into the box the white flag immediately comes up, which indicates that there is mail for the people in the house. Dropping a letter to be mailed into the box raises the red flag, which is the signal to the passing carrier. It is large enough for the largest-sized letter and has separate spaces for papers and packages. It is the intention of the postoffice department to introduce the house-to-house collection system as soon as possible.

Penalties could be served for anyone interfering with the US Mail, or the mailboxes lined up along the rural roads. This The Wyoming Press, Evanston, Wyoming May 31, 1902

As To Rural Free Delivery. The Law Governing the Destruction or Interference with Boxes. The Press has been requested to publish the following clause of the law relative to rural free delivery, which provides penalties for destroying or interfering in any manner with the boxes or receptacles placed along the routes for the reception of mail matter: “Whoever shall willfully or maliciously injure, tear down or destroy any letter box or other receptacle established by order of the Postmaster General or approved or designated by him for the receipt or delivery of mail matter on any rural free delivery route, or shall break open the same, or willfully or maliciously injure, deface or destroy any mail matter deposited therein, or shall willfully take or steal such matter from or out of such letter box or other receptacle, or shall willfully aid or assist in any of the aforementioned offenses, shall for every such offense be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than three years

Addresses were pretty basic in 1901, as we see by the ad below. No box number, no zip code or zip code + 4. This from The Sheridan Post, February 28, 1901

Rural folks depended on the RDF to bring them letters from far-flung relatives and friends, Christmas Cards, and, for the youngsters, the Christmas Wish Books from Sears, Roebuck and ‘Monkey Wards,’, or mailing letters to Santa. Today, rural folks still depend on the RFD to bring them US mail, catalogs and packages.