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data that you will find. You can perform free database lookups on our website with our software or you
can download our ZIP codes database for data manipulation. Our free ZIP codes finder helps
you find the ZIP codes and related demographic information for any U.S. or Canadian Postal Code.
Historical ZIP Code Facts
Zip Codes (postal codes) are largely responsible for the
automation of the United States Post Office’s mail handling.
Today, over 600,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each business day,
and our mail can take as little as one day to reach its destination.
Back in 1799, it could take three weeks for a letter to travel from Lexington,
Massachusetts to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The cost of mail was relatively
much higher back then. It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter 450 miles – not
much less than it costs today to send a letter anywhere in the country,
and in considerably less time!
Today, many of us in the United States expect to have our mail delivered
to our homes and offices at no extra charge. Before July 1, 1863,
city residents had to pay to have a postal worker bring their mail
to them; rural customers had to travel to pick up their own mail
for another 30 years. Zip codes wouldn't have helped much in those days.
Many famous Americans have been postal workers. Benjamin Franklin
is known as “The Father of the United States Postal Service.” Abraham
Lincoln was postmaster of New Salem, Illinois in the 1830’s,
and it is rumored that he personally delivered mail by carrying it
in his hat along with a list of delivery places.
Harry S. Truman was postmaster of Grandview, Missouri
for a time. William Faulkner was postmaster of the University of
Mississippi Post Office.
Perhaps the most romantic era in our United States postal history
is that of the Pony Express. Before then, stagecoaches took more
than 20 days to deliver mail from coast to coast. In 1860, William
H. Russell bought strong horses and put a listing for good horseback
riders in newspaper ads that read: “Wanted: Young, skinny,
wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders willing to risk death
daily. Orphans preferred.” Russell’s Pony Express was
in service for 18 months, cutting the time it took for mail delivery
coast to coast in half. The service closed in 1861 when telegraph
lines connecting the coasts were finished being laid, allowing people
to send information much faster and cheaper than they could by Pony
Express.
The history of the
United States Post Office is filled with fascinating data
and amusing facts. Did you know the first Post Office in the United
States was actually a tavern? Or that the United States employed
camels to deliver mail over deserts in the Southwest? Or that one
of the first airmail deliveries involved a three mile flight, and
that the pilot dropped the bag of mail from the flying plane to
a postmaster waiting below?
Zip Codes (postal codes) didn’t come into use until 1963. Their inventor,
Robert Aurand Moon, is known as the “Father
of ZIP Codes” and was nicknamed “Mr. ZIP Code.” Another
character also went by this name: the lovable cartoon ambassador, Mr.
Zip or Mr. Zippy, who some think was largely responsible for
the success of United States ZIP code compliance.
And just what are ZIP Codes?
And how does the United States Post Office use them? What do the
numbers stand for? Where does the ZIP code data come from? How about the ZIP + 4 Codes? There’s plenty
to learn about the Zoning Improvement
Plan Codes!
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