Mailboxes are common sights around the world, but the colors in which they are painted vary from country to country. In France, they are yellow, and in Ireland, they are green, while red is used in both Italy and the UK.
However, in the United States, mail collection boxes are commonly painted blue. As the United States Postal Service (USPS) notes on its website: “USPS collection boxes are typically blue, freestanding units, located at post offices and other strategic locations.”
So what is the story behind this use of color for the country’s mail depositories? It’s actually a much more recent choice than you might think. Here is a look at the reasons why mailboxes in the U.S. are blue.
Early mail collection boxes in the United States were not actually blue at all, but went through a range of other colors before reaching the one which is used today. The earliest known color used on official United States mailboxes was green, as referenced in The New York Times in 1860, followed by red mailboxes in the 1880s to early 1890s.
The use of red for U.S. mailboxes was ultimately abandoned because the boxes were sometimes confused for police call boxes, which were painted the same color. Mailboxes then began to be painted a silver-white color in 1897, before returning to green in 1905, which became the standard color over the next few decades.
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