U.S. Postal Service – Once Tied To Wells Fargo Wagons, Dog Teams, & Dedicated Mailmen – Loses Ground

COPPER RIVER COUNTRY JOURNAL 

'THE MAIL MUST GO THROUGH' 

Phrase Was Once A Rallying Cry About Responsibility, Community & Basic Rights Of Every American To Be Served By Our Country 

Today? Not So Much

U.S. mailman in Alaska. (PostalMuseum on the web)

As if everything we once considered normal isn't falling apart enough already, the U.S. Postal Service is, once again, seriously threatening to pack it up and go home. It's running out of money, and there are headlines about its imminent demise within a year.

Its stated goal of making sure the people of our nation can send and receive important documents, love letters, junk mail, bills – and even the certified copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses, sent from distant states to Alaska to ensure a person can vote – is in danger.

The Postal Service is losing ground as electronic transmissions rise. But that doesn't mean that the courier service of physical documents and physical "things" is something we can easily ignore if it goes away permanently.

Provisions for post offices are so important that they're built into the U.S. Constitution, with the mission of "trusted universal postal service." Technically, of course, this isn't the way the so-called Founding Fathers ever wanted it to be. 

This year, 2026, marks the 250th anniversary of the nation. The postal service is even older than that. It was founded by the Second Continental Congress – in 1775, at the start of the American Revolutioin.

The U.S. Post Office system goes back so far in time that Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general. 

ALASKA'S POSTAL SERVICE

During the days of the great Alaska Gold Rush, at the end of the 19th century, mail was brought out to the gold fields by U.S. mail dog teams. In those times, there were huge batches of mail to deliver – and travel in general was usually best in winter over the snow and ice because there were no bridges. 

According to the Smithsonian, which keeps track of such things, the amount of mail that dog teams had to carry was enormous. In Valdez, for example, the post office was filled floor-to-ceiling with mailbags. The Smithsonian Postal Museum website says that there were so many sacks of mail, piling up for months, that the local postmaster "panicked and fled both the post office and the territory" he was so overwhelmed. 

The Valdez Post Office, filled to the brim with mail for the dog teams to freight north into the Copper River Valley's small camps and settlements during the Gold Rush. (PostalMuseum site)

Mail carrying was extremely dangerous. As the Smithsonian recounts, on January 24th, 1902, Julia Musgrave wrote from Dawson:

"Many lives have been lost [on the unsafe ice]. Two mail carriers were drowned and mail lost... I have sent out about 7 letters this winter had replies from none, that is the worst feature of the country. It is not right and I do not think necessary. American mail comes as far as White Horse I am told and many times it is left there until the boats come in."

Dog sleds were limited to carrying 400 lbs, so most of the mail that finally arrived in isolated settlements and roving gold camps was first class mail. That was heavy enough. 

TODAY'S MAIL

The frustration of not getting mail during those days of 120 years ago in Alaska was understandable, of course. People were desperate for news of home, and for contact with their loved ones. But it's also somewhat unreasonable. They were lucky for what they got. After all, in some places there weren't even any trails.

Today, though, the idea of not being able to get mail – after two and a half centuries, in modern America, is much harder to stomach, or even comprehend. 

Here are headlines from March, 2026: