250 Years of the United States — 251 Years of Its Postal Service

On 4 July 2026, the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To mark the occasion, we're looking back at the remarkable story of a postal service that is even older than the nation itself.

On 26 July 1775, with the American Revolutionary War already underway, the Second Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, established an independent postal service for the American colonies — the Constitutional Post — replacing Britain's Crown Post. Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General.

At the time, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston were the largest colonial cities, so the earliest postal routes connected them. Mail riders and stagecoaches carried letters, government correspondence and newspapers, providing the colonies with their most reliable means of long-distance communication. By the late eighteenth century, a letter traveling from Boston to Charleston could take two or even three weeks to arrive, depending on the weather.

Delivering the mail was not always safe. Throughout the nineteenth century, stagecoaches crossing the American frontier were typically accompanied by an armed guard carrying a double-barreled coach gun. The familiar American expression "riding shotgun" — sitting in the front passenger seat of a car — traces its origins back to those mail coaches.

The Mail That United a Nation

George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, both believed that a nationwide postal network was essential for holding the young republic together.

That importance was reflected in the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress the authority to "establish Post Offices and post Roads." Later, the constitutions of Switzerland (1848) and the German Empire (1871) likewise assigned responsibility for postal services to the federal government.

The First Post Office Act

In 1792, Congress passed the Post Office Act, a law often described by historians as one of the foundations of American democracy.

The Act established a permanent federal postal system, defined postal rates and routes, guaranteed the privacy of correspondence, and prohibited government officials from opening private letters without legal authority.

It also introduced very low postage rates for newspapers. The Founding Fathers believed that affordable access to news was essential for an informed public and a healthy democracy — even if it meant the postal service would not always be profitable.

The Arrival of Postage Stamps

Postage stamps were first introduced in Great Britain in 1840 before spreading around the world. Before then, postage was often paid by the recipient, and rates depended on both distance and the number of sheets enclosed. That's why early American letters often bear large handwritten numbers — they indicate the postage due, not a serial number.

The first U.S. postage stamps appeared seven years after Britain's famous Penny Black. While Britain's first stamp featured the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria, the United States chose two of its Founding Fathers instead: Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

Between 1845 and 1847, before the first federal issues appeared, several American postmasters produced their own local stamps, known today as postmasters' provisionals, in cities including New York, Baltimore and St. Louis.

Mail by Rail

As the United States expanded westward after independence, its postal network grew rapidly. The number of post offices increased from just 75 in 1789 to more than 8,000 by the mid-nineteenth century.

With the arrival of the railroads, mail began traveling in baggage cars. In 1838, Congress officially designated all railroad routes as post roads, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) became the first railway to carry U.S. mail under a federal contract.

During the Civil War, in 1864, the first Railway Post Office (RPO) car entered service on the Chicago–Clinton, Iowa, route. Postal clerks sorted letters while the train was moving using pigeonholes, canceling tables and a remarkable mail catcher that allowed mailbags to be picked up and dropped off without stopping the train. Developed by George B. Armstrong, the system made the U.S. postal service one of the fastest and most efficient in the world, inspiring similar services in many other countries.

The final Railway Post Office route was discontinued on 30 June 1977.

From horseback mail riders to railway post offices, and later to aircraft and automated sorting centres, the United States Postal Service has continued to evolve alongside the nation it has served for more than 250 years.

Happy Fourth of July!