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RAILWAY POST OFFICE
Many folks do not realize that at one time, the mail was picked up and delivered to cities and towns by a Railway Post Office train car.
The Railway Post Office was created in 1862 with the first cars being repurposed baggage cars. It was inside these cars that the mail was not only transported but was sorted along the way.
The train would stop at larger towns and cities for travelers to get on and off, as well as to pick up and deliver the mail. For smaller towns, however, the mail was collected by a hook attached to the side of the RPO that would snatch a mail bag off a mail pole with the incoming mail being thrown off the cars at the same time.
The last Postal Railcar made its run in 1977.
Our Railway Post Office car was built in 1947, picking up and delivering mail on routes of the Iowa Northern Railroad. The Wallace Depot Commission acquired this railroad car in 2012 and are painstakingly restoring it into a Railway Post Office Museum which will become a part of the Wallace Depot experience for visitors from near and far.