Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Item
Title
D124582-1
Date(s)
- 1960-01-07 (Creation)
Extent
Name of creator
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
Competing letters leave Tacoma bound for Fairbanks Alaska. Photograph ordered by the Daily News-Miner, Fairbanks, Alaska. A.F. Caillouette, left, Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Alaska-Hawaii Trade Promotion Committee, is pictured mailing one of two letters bound for Fairbanks. Jack Ryan, center, City Editor of the News-Miner, holds a second letter as the driver of the truck looks on. The second letter will be taken to the same destination on a truck which travels on the Alcan Highway. Also in the background is a large truck from Lynden Transfer Inc. of Lynden, WA. The Lynden company shipped freight to Alaska twice weekly. The mailbox is located in front of the Industrial branch of the National Bank of Washington. The letter mailed at 2:26 p.m. on January 6th was received Jan. 18th. The letter taken by truck arrived in 3 days and 18 hours, almost a full week earlier! This exercise was planned to show the ability of trucks to deliver mail faster than the steamships currently in use. The difference in speed was reputedly well known by the Post Office, but changes in service were being blocked by political interests in Washington, D.C. (TNT 1/20/1960, pg 1 & A-7)
Ryan, Jack; Mailboxes--Tacoma; Caillouett, A.F.;