Original photo by bgwalker/ iStock
While postal employees pride themselves on delivering mail in rain, sleet, and snow, they can still be impeded by sloppy handwriting. That’s why the U.S. Postal Service has a team of keen-eyed employees whose job is to determine where to send letters and packages with illegible addresses. More than 730 people work at the USPS Remote Encoding Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which was the first facility of its kind and is now the last one standing.
Encoding centers peaked in 1997, when the USPS processed 19 billion pieces of difficult-to-read mail using 55 different facilities. But due to advances in computer analysis, as well as the fact that fewer people handwrite letters these days, just one facility dedicated to poor penmanship still operates today. The employees there play a pivotal role in analyzing the 3 million images of garbled addresses they receive each day.
Oops, incorrect!
It's a factThe Hope diamond was sent by U.S. mail from New York to Washington, D.C., on November 8, 1958. It was shipped by jeweler Harry Winston as a donation to the Smithsonian, where it remains on display today. Winston paid $2.44 ($27.35 today) for postage.
Here’s how it works: Before ever reaching the facility, mail is scanned by a computer to determine its destination. While this step is often successful on its own, sometimes the writing is so indecipherable that the address remains a mystery. When that’s the case, an image of the letter is scanned and sent to the encoding facility, where the average employee can rapidly decipher 900 pieces of mail every hour. In some cases, unintelligible letters are brought in for a last-ditch physical inspection, after which mail is either sent on its intended way, returned to sender, or (in rare cases) disposed of.
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The first woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp was ______.
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The first woman to appear on a U.S. postage stamp was Martha Washington.
There’s a floating post office with its own ZIP code.
The J.W. Westcott II, a mail-carrying boat that operates on the Detroit River, is the only floating post office in the United States. Its purpose is to deliver all mail addressed to crew members aboard the many freight ships that sail down the river. The boat uses a “mail in the pail” method, in which letters or packages are put into a bucket tied to a rope and hoisted onto the vessel.
The J.W. Westcott II was founded as a supply ship in 1874 and began doing mid-river mail transfers in 1895. It earned an official USPS contract in 1948 and was given its very own ZIP code, 48222 — the first nonmilitary floating ZIP code ever issued.
Bennett Kleinman is a New York City-based staff writer for Inbox Studio, and previously contributed to television programs such as "Late Show With David Letterman" and "Impractical Jokers." Bennett is also a devoted New York Yankees and New Jersey Devils fan, and thinks plain seltzer is the best drink ever invented.
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