With no home delivery, recipients either didn’t want the letters or were unaware of them. Postmasters paid to publish in newspapers lists of people with mail piling up. In 1847, the first U.S ...

The one government agency that still reaches nearly every American daily — undeterred by rain, sleet, snow or even gloom of night — turns 250 on Saturday. Established in ...

The U.S. Postal Service is turning 250. Saturday’s anniversary comes as the agency faces financial challenges. The postal service was established in 1775, when the Second Continental Congress ...

This illustration depicts a Pony Express rider, left, greeting Western Union linemen as they string wires of the first transcontinental telegraph in 1861. Operated by private carriers from April 3 ...