A Look at the Times Before Package Delivery Services

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UPS began its package delivery services on bicycles—a far cry from today’s easy, overnight shipping options that include the use of flight, motor vehicles, computer tracking, routing and Internet services. Before private carriers, mail traveled by horse via the Pony Express. In large cities, mail was carried by bicycles, and most often by foot—a local mailman might walk eighteen miles a day making his deliveries. In all of this, package delivery service was a major challenge.

Most people recognize the name Benjamin Franklin (the guy with the lightning fixation). Few people however, know that he was the United States’ first Postmaster General. Under his oversight, mail was mostly delivered in and around the city. Communications had no promised delivery date, and the consideration of even transporting a written communication, no less a package, was hardly thought of. In the intervening years, Franklin and others organized the system known as the USPS, which enabled customers to mail letters and some parcels with acceptable delivery results.

By 1852, however, such great discontent has arisen over the monopoly that the USPS had on mailing parcels—their package delivery services charged exorbitant rates to mail packages—that private parcel services were established to compete. One very familiar name was originally on the cutting edge of parcel delivery: Wells Fargo. Had Wells Fargo decided to stay in the parcel service instead of establishing the other branch of their service, banking, people might now ask, “What can Fargo do for you?” instead of looking to UPS and other private carriers.

Wells Fargo was the frontrunner in a competitive industry to deliver post. Their stagecoach method for transporting packages enabled a new level of safety to the customer. While stagecoach robbery quickly became the hot profession for robbers, it also provided the first marginally safe way to ship packages. Before stagecoach runs, people had no reliable way to deliver their packages, and theft was even more common.

Americans today do not even consider how far mail and parcel delivery has come. Sending a package three thousand miles in twenty-four hours is possible. When Benjamin Franklin began as head of the post office, sending a letter three thousand yards seemed challenging (solely organizing a service established on good communication made even short deliveries harder than hand delivery). Innovation through the ages has allowed mail delivery to come a long way.

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