Text the word “mailbox” and your messaging app will likely present you with a choice of emojis featuring traditional rural mailboxes. It’s an interesting contradiction―if you text like you were born with a phone in your hand, it’s entirely possible you’ve never used a traditional, rural mailbox in real life.
There are typically four versions of the mailbox emoji―with the mailbox door open and shut and with the red flag raised and lowered.
If you’re not familiar with the rules around the little, red flag, you should know the specifics vary by the level of service in the area. For instance, a full-service mailbox in the US is used to deliver incoming mail and collect outgoing mail. When the mail carrier delivers mail, they raise the red flag to notify the recipients that mail has been placed in the box. On the other hand, when the mailbox owner puts outgoing mail in the box, they raise the red flag to notify the mail carrier there is mail to be picked up. Levels of service and, thus, the practices around the red flag can vary from location to location.
Many traditional rural mailboxes in the US and Canada are being phased out and replaced by group mailboxes. Yet, these mailboxes were once a lifeline for most country folks. Long before chat, email and Facebook, the rural mailbox provided a crucial connection to the rest of the world.
I recall it was the sole method of communication between my immediate family in Nova Scotia and our extended family in the Netherlands. Little wonder, my mother watched our mailbox like a hawk! She was always on the lookout for a letter from her siblings―eager for loving greetings and family news. A seemingly endless stream of flimsy, light blue, air mail letters were collected from and delivered to that mailbox.
Pictured below is a rural mailbox at the end of a farm driveway in Prince Edward Island.
In the US, “when Rural Free Delivery Service began, first as an experiment in 1896 and later as an official service in 1902, patrons looked around their homes and farms for anything they could find to use as a mailbox.” reports the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in their article Rural Mailboxes. “As a result, rural letter carriers found themselves face-to-face with a hodgepodge of homemade, semi-functional ‘mailboxes’. Old coal oil, syrup and food containers were dragged out, sometimes with sticky remnants of the original contents pooled inside the box, and slapped on top of poles set out along the road.”
Over time, the Post Office Department standardized the mailbox design to regulate their size, quality, functionality and placement. In 1915, a postal employee named Roy Joroleman designed a dome-topped mailbox which remains the go-to mailbox design to this day. “When experimenting with new mailbox designs, Joroleman discovered that by using a rectangular-dome shape, water and snow wouldn’t accumulate on the top. Rather, gravity would pull the rain or snow down and off the mailbox. Other types of curbside mailboxes at the time often succumbed to weather-related degradation. Rain and snow would collect on the top of curbside mailboxes, and as the moisture soaked into the mailboxes, it caused them to rust or rot.” explains the Forsite website.
The ubiquitous Joroleman design is perfectly illustrated by this mailbox I spotted in Georgia.
And, yes, this mailbox is super-sized! It appears someone has a great sense of humor!
In this next example, a Nova Scotia resident has labeled mailboxes for “Air Mail” and “Flyers” apparently in jest…
… since they are mounted much too high for actual mail delivery!
Obviously, the super-sized mailbox and the AirMail and Flyers mailboxes are not meant for actual postal service. But, they are great examples of commonplace items made to stand out. I think of them as “mailboxes with personality” and I’ve been on the lookout for more to share.
I spotted this manatee and her calf holding the mailbox at the Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park in Florida. It’s the perfect mailbox for this park which hosts a second-tier care center to rehabilitate injured manatees. You can learn more about this center and manatees in my previous blog post Face to Face with a Manatee.
This next mailbox, spotted in a fishing village in Prince Edward Island, has a great folk-art vibe. Notice the fisherman is holding the actual mailbox which is shaped like a traditional wooden lobster buoy with a carved seagull on top.
Making mailboxes which look like houses or buildings isn’t all that unusual. But an elaborate log cabin structure like the one shown below is unique. It was spotted in Georgia.
This next mailbox, spotted on Prince Edward Island, really made me smile! Who doesn’t love Snoopy on his doghouse?
This mailbox featuring the iconic Volkswagen bus, spotted in Georgia, also has personality galore! Check out the details!
This next mailbox was spotted in a coastal community in Maine. Obviously, someone with artistic talent designed and painted the pretty lighthouse beach theme to suit its location.
Occasionally, a clever business owner will leverage their mailbox to promote the business. Here’s a great example from Eileen’s Grooming, a dog and cat groomer in South Carolina. It’s not every day you see a groomed, white poodle mailbox!
Here’s another example―a charming bee-themed mailbox belonging to The Bee’s Knees Toys and Books in South Carolina.
In order to reduce the number of stops required by the mail carrier, mailboxes are sometimes placed in clusters. Here’s an example I spotted in Prince Edward Island. It’s an interesting mashup of styles.
This next example is a great pairing of opposite tastes ―offbeat, heavy metal style on the left and simple, stream-lined minimalism on the right.
It appears this mailbox was built with recycled metal parts. The maker took great care as evidenced by details such as the chain link heart on the mailbox door.
Speaking of recycling, this next mailbox is the most unusual example of repurposing I’ve seen.
Yes, it’s a microwave oven―mounted on a post to serve as a mailbox… at least, that’s how it appeared to me.
To wrap up, there are a number of options for adding personality to a traditional, rural mailbox. Options range from enhancing the standard dome-shaped rectangular container as shown in these examples…
… to replacing the box with a customized container as shown in these examples…
…to customizing the entire mailbox structure as shown in these examples. In any case, it is important, of course, to be in compliance with the local postal service regulations.
More Info
Previous blog posts mentioned in today’s blog post include:
. Face to Face with a Manatee.
The following resources were consulted in writing this blog post:
. Emojis on Emojipedia.org
. Rural Mailboxes article by Smithsonian National Postal Museum
. The Jorolemon Mailbox: How It Influenced Modern-Day Mailbox Designs blog post on Forsite website.
Today’s Takeaways
1. Rural mailboxes have been in use for over 125 years.
2. Most rural mailboxes use the familiar dome-topped, rectangular box designed by Roy Joroleman.
3. There are a number of options for adding personality to a regulation-compliant, rural mailbox.
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