WHO REMEMBERS BEFORE WE HAD ZIP CODES?

Pearlee · ‎06-11-2011

I was just reading that yesterday, July 1, was the anniversary of the zip code being used starting in 1963. I remember how we addressed mail before zip codes. We had zones. I remember ours but just as a made-up example, the last line of an address would be:

Sarasota, 14, FL

So 14 would be the zone (again, I just made that number up).

The P.O. logically concluded that mail would move faster if the zone (region) was placed at the end of the address and not buried in the middle of it, and so the zone # became the last two digits of our zip code. It took quite a while before everyone used a zip code and not the zone way of addressing things. Imagine trying to get a whole country to change over! And there was no email so people wrote letters then and bills were sent and paid by mail.

Who else remembers the changeover?

SeaMaiden · ‎03-10-2010

It was not THAT long ago LOL😄

Pearlee · ‎06-11-2011

@SeaMaiden wrote:
It was not THAT long ago LOL😄

59 yrs ago. Not everyone remembers it.

brandiwine · ‎03-11-2010

I really hate to admit I do remember. Time flys by

fthunt · ‎12-24-2010

Yaw - zips are recent. If you want to go back in time.........how many

remember party lines on telephone?

You shared a line with neighbors - ours was a 2 party - ------

Shelbelle · ‎03-09-2010

Yes, we were in zone 15

fairydogmother · ‎03-10-2010

Elvis sang about it. "Return to sender, address unknown, no such number, no such zone"

I lived in Indianapolis 20, Indiana

Harmonize the World

KatieB · ‎03-10-2010

@Pearlee I remember it. We had a rural route number and a post office box number at our small post office out in the country. The post office was a part (in a little corner) of our country store. You had to go to the post office to get your mail when I was growing up.