 |
Mail delivery has never been simple, but in Wisconsin people had to be creative. Our postal history includes mail delivery by boat across Lake Waubesa or Lake Geneva, by train, on horseback and on skis. Sun Prairie had one of the first rural free delivery routes, saving farmers the task of driving to town for the mail. A visit to one of the smallest post offices in Wisconsin shows the continuing ways a post office makes a community. In 1913, parcel post delivery opened up a cornucopia of catalog goods to Wisconsin. Even the most isolated farm family now had access to household goods, farm tools, windmills, houses, road building material and wagons. You name it, it came by mail. The program stops by several Sears mail-order houses around Madison, and viewers learn about the history of catalogs. In 1935, a package of Limburger cheese mailed from Monroe to Iowa was returned, stamped "undeliverable" because of its odor. The resulting exchange between postmasters from the two states resulted in a taste trial that made national news.
|
|
|