New Horizons

THE SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL POSTAL MUSEUM SHOWS HOW INNOVATIONS PUT AMERICANS IN TOUCH WITH THE FRONTIER

1860

Back when the railroads only went as far west as Missouri, the

Pony Express, honored in this 1904 painting, helped cover the missing ground for about a year and a half. Mounted carriers famously sped mail the 1,800 miles from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in just ten days.

1869

This is one of the earliest depictions of a train on a postage stamp, says Daniel Piazza, a curator at the Postal Museum. It was issued the same year the transcontinental railroad was completed, opening a new era in communication as well as expansion.

1904-1918

This box, one of the models that tinsmith Charles Boyer produced in Marengo, Illinois, in the early 20th century, helped rural carriers fulfill their duty as a kind of traveling post office. Boyer’s ads promised carriers that his boxes would “add dignity to your position” and “make your work easier” by holding up to 500 stamps and 35 money orders. This one belonged to John Goudy, a rural letter carrier from Steuben County, Indiana.

1922

During winter in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, couriers used dog sleds to deliver mail to Americans in the Alaska Territory. Ed Biederman drove this sled to deliver mail across his 160-mile route between Circle and Eagle, Alaska, until he retired in 1935 after a nasty case of frostbite.