Facts and Figures About the Post Office

Facts about the Postal Service:

• The post office moves mail on planes, trains, trucks, cars, boats, ferries, helicopters, subways, hovercraft, street cars, bicycles, feet and even mules.
• Those mules carry mail to Indians living at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Because some of that mail is food, the post office at Peach Springs, Ariz., has freezers to store it until delivery.
• Oldest post office in the same building: Hinsdale, N.H., 1816.
• Smallest post office, Ochopee, Fla., 8-feet-4-inches by 7-feet-3-inches.
• Floating post office, post boat JW Westcott delivers mail to ships passing in the Detroit River. The boat has its own ZIP code, 48222.
• Longest rural route: Route 1, Fordsville, N.D., 176.5 miles daily to serve 174 mailboxes.
• Shortest rural route, Route 42, Henderson, Nev., 1.9 miles daily, 640 mailboxes.
• Number of mail pieces handled daily in 2009, 584 million.
• Payroll every two weeks, salary and benefits, $2.1 billion.
• Vehicles operated: 218,684.
• Address changes processed last year: 43.8 million.
• Number of new delivery addresses added to the mail system last year, 923,595.