Love it or hate it, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has a rich history — and there’s a lot you may not know about this nearly 250-year-old institution
The first U.S. post office was housed in a tavern in Boston.
The watering hole, owned by Richard Fairbanks, primarily collected mail between the Colonies and England. When it opened in 1639, letters cost a penny apiece to mail.
The first postage stamp, introduced in 1847, featured Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin was appointed the first postmaster general by the Continental Congress in 1775. His salary: $1,000, or about $41,500 today. He held the job for a year before being dispatched to France to serve as an ambassador to the court of King Louis XVI.
The post office invented ZIP codes.
In 1963, the Postal Service introduced the Zoning Improvement Plan (ZIP) code to better process and deliver increasing volumes of mail. ZIP codes allowed mail to be sent to specific streets, homes and businesses. The largest ZIP code in the continental U.S. is 99734 in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, measuring 30,683 square miles.
