The HISTORY
15 Oct 1896 - First Rural Free Delivery in Indiana
"There has been nothing in the history of the postal service of the United States so remarkable as the growth of the rural free delivery system. Within the past two years, largely by the aid of the people themselves, who, in appreciation of the helping hand which the Government extended to them, have met these advances halfway, it has implanted itself so firmly upon the postal administration that it can no longer be considered in the light of an experiment, but has to be dealt with as an established agency of progress, awaiting only the action of the Congress to determine how rapidly it shall be developed." - Report of the Postmaster-General 1899
Hope and Hartsville, Indiana claim the honor of being the FIRST rural mail delivery in Indiana. Just how did this happen in such small towns in Hawcreek Township of Bartholomew County, Indiana?
Since about 1890 citizens of the United States who lived in rural areas had been asking for mail delivery "To America's Front Door." Congress was not very confident that such a plan could be successful. Why would farmers need mail delivered to their homes? And how could employees of the United States postal service travel all over the countryside over poor dirt roads to get things to these people who were demanding service? But in 1891, the Postmaster General, John Wanamaker requested that congress appropriate $6 million to get the service started. Congress refused (of course) but instead offered $10, 000 to start the rural delivery. Wanamaker knew that was impossible, so he turned the money down.
In 1896, Congress appropriated $40,000 for Postmaster General, William L. Wilson, to put the long awaited Rural Free Delivery service to the test. The forty-four routes selected for the experiment by Wilson were located in twenty-nine states over a six month period of time.
1 Oct 1896, Halltown, Uvilla, and Charlestown, all of Postmaster Wilson's home state of West Virginia were the first to start Rural Free Delivery in the United States. But, two weeks later, 15 Oct, eight more towns began, including Hope and Hartsville, Indiana.
Here is what the locals read the day before the Experiment began.
Free Delivery
The Experiment of Delivering Mail to Be Tried in Hawcreek Township
It has been decided by W.L.Moore, postoffice inspector, to try the experiment of rural delivery of mail in Hawcreek township, that being the only civil township in the county the exact size of a congressional township six miles square. There will be three carriers appointed, two from Hope and one from Hartsville. The postoffice at Rugby will be abandoned. The inspector expects to have the carriers appointed and the work to begin tomorrow, Oct 15. The work will be continued about six months. There will be one delivery of mail a day to all persons living outside the corporations of Hope and Hartsville. The carriers will also collect mail from houses. The appropriation for making this experiment was made on the recommendation of Postmaster-General Wanamaker. It has been found that the free delivery of mail in cities increased the receipts in those postoffices and it is thought that this rural delivery will likewise increase the postoffice receipts where it is introduced.
-The Republic 14 Oct 1896
Throughout this trial period there were many problems and some routes had to be temporarily stopped due to road conditions, transportation problems, weather, problems maintaining employees, etc.
When these experimental routes were begun, each of the carriers had to provide his own transportation which meant a horse and some sort of a buggy. Hope had 2 routes and Hartsville had 1 route, each route was about 25 miles long. And each carrier received about $1 a day for his work or $300 a year.
The mail carriers were set up as rolling post offices with stamps or post cards to purchase. They could handle registered letters and packages that needed to be sent out. The carriers became a very important figure in the community, often having to help with unusual situations. There is a story of a mail carrier who was needed to help round up hogs that had escaped from a pen. Many had to deliver baby chicks in the spring as boxes of hundreds of chicks were loaded into his buggy. And even in recent years, one rural carrier had a customer who would leave a purse in her mailbox with money for stamps, and he would have to guess what she needed by the amount of money left. And of course the carriers became close friends to their patrons.
On the very first delivery day, 15 Oct 1896, the Postmaster of the Hope post office sent a letter to E. O. Jones, who lived in the home that should have been the first stop on what was then Route #14 out of Hope. Mr. Jones was waiting by his gate to see this first delivery, and from then on he met the carrier at the gate nearly every day of his life.
In 1896, The Postmaster at Hope was Ephraim Norman, who also had a furniture shop and a mortuary, so the post office was in his furniture store. When it became time for the experimental routes out of Hope, Mr. Norman convinced his son, Raleigh, to take one of the routes and Raleigh's friend, Owen Miller, took the other. Raleigh had just married before the routes began and had moved to Hartsville, but he continued to travel to Hope each morning to run the route through the experimental period.
This framed photograph which was used to create the above banner, is of Hope RFD Carriers about 1903 once Hope had formed five routes out of Hope to cover more area than the original two routes. This was taken on the north side of the town square in front of the post office which was housed in the building that now (2019) holds "Special By Design". The drivers are: Joe Clouse, M. V. Rominger, Albert Hitchcock, John Moore, Frank Rominger.
The carriers in the above picture are all driving hacks from Neligh's Carriage Works in Hope. Albert Hitchcock presented an idea for an enclosed buggy to the Neligh Carriage Shop, who later made carriages for all over the state.
Albert Hitchcock decided he needed an enclosed buggy for winter, so he went to the local buggy shop, Neligh's Carriage Shop, to see if they could help him. His plan was to take the running gears from another buggy, build a wooden roof and sides that could be covered with linoleum to keep out the snow and rain. He wanted a window at the front, a space to run the reins out, and a sliding door. And he needed room for a seat, a sorting rack for the mail, and hopefully a small stove with a pipe running out the roof of the buggy. The Neligh Brothers told him such a buggy would not last 3 months as he drove over the rough roads of the countryside. Albert was discouraged, but decided to try to build it himself. The buggy he built became his mail hack for all weather for 14 years. When the Neligh's saw what he had come up with, they began to build hacks for other drivers not only in Hope, but all over the state and beyond. The Neligh Carriage is still a part of the insignia for the National Rural Letter Carriers Association.
25 Jul 1925 - Significant Achievement Recognized
Lloyd Norton served as the Hope Postmaster from 2 May 1921 until 23 Feb 1927. While he held that position, he spent much time researching to verify that Hope held the honor of the longest continuous Rural Mail Delivery in the nation. This interest was generated when the Indiana Rural Letter Carriers wished to place a monument in Hope to recognize that honor, and Lloyd wanted it to state that Hope's routes had continued longer than any others in the United States, but was only able to verify it for the state of Indiana.
What he had discovered told him that the routes started in West Virginia, just two weeks before Hope's routes had been altered enough that they couldn't be called the same routes that were started in 1896. His work was instrumental in finally getting a monument sharing the fact that Hope's routes were the longest continuous routes in Indiana.
19 Oct 1967 - Research Committee
The Indiana Rural Letter Carriers' Association, tried for years to place a marker honoring the Hope area, but for a while there was some controversy about this decision to honor just Hope, when Hartsville had started a route the same day.
As years went by the idea came back up at nearly every state conference until finally a Committee was appointed by presidents, Mr & Mrs Charles Whittington, of Elizabethtown. Committee members were Mr. & Mrs. Max Harms of Columbus, Mr. & Mrs. Morris McClintic of Columbus, and Mr. & Mrs. Howard Stewart of Hope. Their research concluded that Hartsville had stopped its route for over a year when it was declared unsuccessful after the experimental period because of too few patrons on the route.
By 1965, the topic of a Marker came back up at the IRLCA convention, and it was decided that the marker should be placed in 1966 as a 70 year celebration of rural mail delivery in Indiana. The marker was not ready in that year, so in 1967, a limestone marker was placed in the Hope town square in a position that was very near where Hope's actual first post office was located.
When the marker was placed in the town square on 15 Oct 1967, Representative Lee Hamilton related the following figures to the amazement of all present:
"Today (1967) there are 700,000 employees of the United States Postal Service 47,131 are Rural Carriers, and of those Rural Carriers 525 are women. These workers serve 10 million people daily. Each day, all rural carriers together travel enough miles to equal four round trips to the moon."
The limestone monument looked much like a tombstone, but it did draw quite a bit of attention, and people wanted to know more about early mail delivery. After several years of this marker being in the square, problems with minor vandalism were noticed.
The Indiana Rural Letter Carriers' Association worked with the Hope Merchants' Association and came up with a plan to build a small museum in the town square that looked much like a log cabin, that would be lighted 24 hours a day, and had two big picture windows through which artifacts could be seen.
The marker that had been damaged when out in the square, was replaced and put inside the building within easy view. The actual dedication of the new museum was held on 19 Oct 1975.
When the Mail Carriers Museum was built by the Indiana Rural Letter Carriers and the Hope Business Association, who made arrangements to place the museum in the town square, the second marker was moved inside the museum to avoid having children climb on it.
The second monument, made out of granite instead of limestone, kept the original design. The writing inside the carved shape of Indiana says:
First Indiana Rural Free
Delivery Mail Routes
Bartholomew Co. Hawcreek Twp.
Oct. 15, 1896
On the base, is "Erected Oct. 15, 1967 by IRLCA"
1980 - Hope Sesquicentennial Celebration
During Hope's Sesquicentennial Celebration, in 1980, much attention was drawn to the Rural Letter Carriers Museum and the significance of Hope's achievement of having the longest continuous mail delivery in the state of Indiana.
1996 - Indiana Rural Carriers' Centennial Celebration
National Letter Carriers' Association met in Indianapolis to honor the 100th Anniversary of rural mail delivery in the nation. As part of that conference, delegates attended a picnic and tour of the first Rural Letter Carriers' Museum, which was in Hope, Indiana, the home of the longest continuous rural mail delivery in Indiana.
State Representative Steve Moberly and Congressman Lee Hamilton recognized Hope's achievement with a letter and newspaper article from the Indianapolis Star.
A Proclamation was written by Govenor Evan Bayh and Hope Town Council President, Greg Sims. Below these are other items from the Centennial Celebration.
Rural mail delivery made a big change in the lives of those in rural areas. Today we know of the ease of ordering things through the internet and having them delivered to our door. Can you image how thrilled those country folks were to receive catalogs like Sears and Roebuck, and be able to purchase things from home and actually have the mailman bring the items to your home? And what about the farm tools and machinery parts that were needed, that you could get from a catalog. The mailman brought it all no matter how big or heavy, and seemed as pleased as the farmer to make the delivery, always remembering their motto, "Service with a Smile."
Many of us today don't write letters, mail checks with our bills, or even take a newspaper or magazine, but we need to realize that what our computers and the internet do for us today is very similar to the improvements in the past when the United States Postal Service was the nations form of communication. We need to be proud of Hope's part in making things happen.
