“Farmers Can Have Mail Brought To Them.
Rural Delivery System Will Soon Be In Operation Throughout Entire State.
It is only a question of a short time when the rural mail delivery system will be in operation in Christian County.
...When the post office department grants the extension of the system to any county it calls attention to the fact that farmers living on star route mail lines can have their mail delivered free of charge by erecting a box and notifying the postmaster.
The person desiring the mail delivered to his residence will then file with the postmaster at the post office to which his mail is addressed a request, in writing for the delivery of his mail to the carrier on the route, to be deposited in said mailbox at the risk of the addressee, and it shall then be duty of the carrier of the route to receive from the post master any mail matter that may be addressed to him, outside of the mail sack, and to carry said mail matter and to deposit it in proper boxes placed on the line of the route for that purpose, such service, of course, to be without charge to the addressee.”
Kentucky New Era, April 6, 1900, front page
Rural Free Delivery, also known as RFD, was the response over a century ago to the notion that rural Americans were as entitled to have mail brought to their homes as were their city-dwelling counterparts. Urban dwellers had been getting mail delivered to their homes by letter carriers since the Civil War. Credit is given to an Ohio postal clerk who thought of the idea: he could no longer bear watching wives and families receive tragic news of their loved ones at war in a public place. Before RFD, 30-million Americans who lived in rural areas in the late 19th century had to travel to the nearest post office to send and receive mail. Too often these post offices were miles away.
Once the Post Office Department designated a RFD route, the local postmaster was responsible for hiring a carrier who would travel the route delivering and receiving mail. Early rural letter carriers made their rounds by whatever means they could. For most that meant by horseback or by buggies and wagons.
There's no telling how many rural mailboxes there are in Christian County, let alone Kentucky or the nation.
Cache is located in the Pennyroyal Area Museum. With its dated cornerstone of 1913, the building was the home of Hopkinsville's Post Office from February 15, 1915 until February 4, 1967. Many of the original features remain.
This cache is placed with the permission of the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville director.
The coordinates take you to the cache, inside the museum lobby.
Only available during operating hours. Museum is open Tuesday-Saturday 10am-4pm (closed Sunday and Monday). There is a very reasonable admission to tour the museum however there is no charge for visiting the gift shop/cache location.
This Letterbox Hybrid cache is a regular sized container holding a small unique log and stamp (as of 7/2021 no stamp pad provided). The stamp is for users who have their own personal journal book to record their finds. Please leave the stamp and log inside the container - replacing cache back exactly where you retrieved it.