The United States Postal Service provides mail delivery to every address in the United States. This expansive network requires extensive infrastructure and manpower to operate across the country. To showcase this operation, the Postal Service has conducted national tours of its facilities and operations throughout its history. These tours provide an inside look into how mail is processed and delivered across America.
The Role of the Postal Service
The United States Postal Service (USPS) plays an essential role in communications and commerce in the United States. It provides affordable, universal mail service to every address in the country. This includes delivering mail and packages to over 159 million addresses six days a week.
The Postal Service operates one of the largest civilian vehicle fleets in the world, with over 218,000 vehicles. It has over 31,000 post offices and facilities across the U.S. Over 497,000 career employees and 136,000 non-career employees work for USPS. In 2020, USPS delivered 139.4 billion pieces of mail.
Providing this vast network of consistent and reliable mail service is an enormous undertaking. Tours of postal facilities provide an inside perspective into how this system operates. They showcase the infrastructure, equipment, workforce, and processes required to deliver the mail.
History of Postal Service Tours
Postal Service tours have been used to educate the public on its operations throughout its history. When the Post Office Department was established in 1792, early Postmasters General recognized the need to inform citizens on how the mail system worked to ensure its acceptance and proper use.
In the 1800s, as mail volume grew rapidly across the expanding nation, larger and more structured postal facilities were constructed. Postmasters General authorized tours of these facilities to showcase the modern equipment and procedures used to sort and process enormous amounts of mail.
The advent of airmail in the early 20th century revolutionized the speed of mail delivery. The public marveled at this development, and Postmasters General promoted airmail through facility tours. Visitors could observe the equipment and operations used in airmail, highlighting innovations in the postal system.
When the Post Office Department became the United States Postal Service in 1971, public education through tours continued. Tours have been offered at USPS headquarters, mail processing plants, post offices and other facilities over the past decades.
Postal Service Tours Today
Currently, the Postal Service offers the public several tour programs at its facilities:
- Postal Museum Tours – The National Postal Museum in Washington D.C. offers guided tours of its exhibits on the history of the Postal Service.
- USPS Headquarters Tours – Free tours are offered at USPS headquarters in Washington D.C., showcasing postal operations.
- Mail Processing Plant Tours – Many mail processing and distribution centers around the country offer tours of their sortation equipment and operations.
- Post Office Tours – Some post office locations offer customers tours of retail counters, sorting areas, and behind-the-scenes mail processing.
- Additional Specialty Tours – Tours are sometimes offered at dedicated facilities like the USPS Bulk Mail Center or Mail Recovery Center.
Tours must be scheduled in advance by contacting the facility. They provide educational and informative visits into the daily operations and history of the Postal Service.
The Last Nationwide Postal Service Tour
The last nationwide concerted effort to provide Postal Service tours was the Mobile Post Office tour that occurred from October 1993 to April 1994. This tour aimed to highlight new developments and innovations in postal operations.
Background on the Mobile Post Office
In the early 1990s, the Postal Service had a number of initiatives to modernize operations. This included automating and mechanizing mail processing. In September 1993, Postmaster General Marvin Runyon authorized a Mobile Post Office tour to showcase these new technologies and processes.
The tour utilized a customized motor coach bus converted into a working post office. This Mobile Post Office demonstrated how mail could be processed and dispatched from a vehicle using the latest automation. It highlighted how postal operations could be made more efficient.
The Nationwide Tour
The Mobile Post Office tour started in Little Rock, Arkansas on October 9, 1993. Over the next six months, the Mobile Post Office made visits to over 130 cities across the continental United States. Some of the major cities visited included:
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Dallas, Texas
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Nashville, Tennessee
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- New York, New York
- Baltimore, Maryland
- Miami, Florida
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Chicago, Illinois
- Omaha, Nebraska
- Denver, Colorado
- San Francisco, California
- Seattle, Washington
At each stop, the Mobile Post Office hosted tours and demonstrations. It showed how automation like optical character readers and barcode sorters streamlined mail processing. Tour participants could observe the technology firsthand and learn about the Postal Service’s modernization initiatives.
End of the Tour
The six month nationwide Mobile Post Office tour concluded in April 1994 after visiting facilities and cities across the continental U.S. In this time period, over 1.4 million people toured the Mobile Post Office. The tour succeeded in its goal of educating the public on new Postal Service automation and operations.
The Mobile Post Office was an enormous undertaking requiring extensive planning and logistics. While other limited regional tours have occurred, there has not been another extensive nationwide Postal Service tour like the Mobile Post Office.
Recent Significant Postal Service Tours
Although there has not been another nationwide tour, the Postal Service has conducted several other high-profile facility tours in recent years:
Morgan Processing and Distribution Center Tour
In September 2009, the Postal Service offered public tours of the new Morgan Processing and Distribution Center in New York City. This was the largest mail processing facility in the United States at the time. The tours exhibited how automation was used to improve productivity and efficiency in mail processing.
Portland Air Mail Facility Tour
In May 2014, the Postal Service opened the Portland Air Mail Facility to tours for the World Stamp Show convention. This plant housed the last remaining air mail sorting operation in the U.S. Tours displayed how air mail was sorted and transported.
Inspection Service Forensic Laboratory Tour
In September 2019, the Postal Inspection Service Forensic Laboratory in Dulles, Virginia hosted tours for Constitution Day. This lab conducts forensic analysis on suspicious mail and packages. The tours provided insight into how the Inspection Service protects the mail system.
Future Postal Service Tours
While there are no plans for a cross-country tour like the 1990s Mobile Post Office, the Postal Service will likely continue offering facility tours in some capacity. These tours help educate the public on postal operations, generate goodwill, and provide transparency.
Tours showcase how new technologies like package sortation equipment improve mail processing. They explain how facilities are designed and laid out for optimal mail flow. Visitors can learn about the various processing stages to get mail from sender to recipient.
Tours also provide valuable community outreach. They allow professional relationships to form between Postal Service personnel and local business and community leaders who participate. Tours can help drive recruitment by highlighting the technology and processes used in postal careers.
In these ways, Postal Service facility tours deliver benefits beyond just showcasing operations. They help strengthen the brand, build trust and support, and connect the Postal Service to communities across the nation it serves. Tours will likely continue evolving as an important outreach tool into the future.
Conclusion
Postal Service tours have been used to educate the public and showcase operations for over two centuries. The most recent large nationwide tour was the Mobile Post Office tour from 1993 to 1994. While not replicating this enormous cross-country undertaking, the Postal Service has continued offering targeted facility tours in the years since. These tours provide valuable insight into postal operations, outreach, branding, and transparency. As the Postal Service evolves with new technology and innovations, tours will persist as an important way to connect with customers and communities into the future.
