The Rural Route Comes to Stay
Postal inspectors ride the 30-mile Yakima circuit and find 200 mailboxes where there were none — and a carrier pay raise to $400 a year.
Postal Inspectors Houpt and Rathbone were in the city on Sunday, and had a long interview with the carriers on the rural route. This service has developed wonderfully since its inception and has been made a permanency by the government.
The inspectors found that over 200 boxes were used daily by suburban people, in many instances more than one family receiving mail in a particular box. The average route is 30 miles long — 15 miles out and an equal distance back. For the present these routes will not be lengthened. It uses up nearly every hour of daylight now to get around the circuit. In the spring some additional boxes may be put on, if, in the opinion of the postmaster, it is practicable.
The carriers will be hereafter under the control and direction of the postmaster, and appeals relative to route changes should be made to that official. On January 1 the pay will be increased by $100 per year, making a total annual allowance of $400 — the final increase being for horse-hire.
The service is pleasing to every patron, and all of them will be glad that it "has come to stay." — Yakima Republic.
“It uses up nearly every hour of daylight now to get around the circuit.”
In 1899 a 30-mile horseback mail circuit was the lifeline tying Yakima's orchards and farms to town; today the same argument — how far public service reaches and who pays for it — plays out over rural broadband and USPS cuts. The $400-a-year carrier wage, horse-hire included, is a reminder that the 'last mile' has always been a labor question.
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