Aug 23, 2009 | Fun facts about the US Postal Service

Did you know:

1) That the USPS fleet of Chevrolet/Grumman LLV (Long Life Vehicles) has a right-handed driver position, as opposed to the U.S. standard left-hand side? This is to accommodate drivers from having to leave their seats in order to deliver mail.

2) That mail is delivered on Sunday in the city of Loma Linda, CA, where there is a large population of Seventh-day Adventists, whose Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday? However, mail isn’t delivered there on Saturday.

3) That the slang term “to go postal” (crazy, uncontrollably angry) comes from a series of incidents between 1986 and 1997 where USPS employees shot and killed what amounted to more than 40 people as a result of workplace rage?

4) That there is a clause in the “Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Postal Property” that gambling on postal premises is prohibited except “to state lottery tickets at vending facilities operated by licensed blind persons where such lotteries are authorized by state law.”?

5) That ZIP codes (which stands for Zoning Improvement Plan and was put in place for the first time in 1963) increase from east to west: the lowest is at Holtsville, New York (00501) and goes up to 99950 (Ketchikan, Alaska)?

6) That Benjamin Franklin was the first Postmaster General, and served slightly longer than 15 months under George Washington?

7) That Marc Chagall’s painting, “Study for Over Vitebsk”, stolen in 2001 from the Jewish Museum in New York, was found in a Topeka, Kansas dead mail sorting facility where letters that can’t be delivered but are without return addresses are sent?

8) That Anaktuvuk Pass Post Office in northern Alaska is the most remote post office, since everything has to be flown in?

9) That, in a similar vein, The Point Roberts, Washington, post office can only be accessed by road by going through Canada, or otherwise by boat or plane?

10) That the J. W. Westcott II is a 45-foot contract mail boat operating in Detroit, Michigan, and delivers mail to passing ships on the Detroit river? It even has its own ZIP code, 48222.

11) That the United States Postal Service is the United States’s second largest employer, with 656,000 employees, second only to Walmart?

(All these facts were collected by me through Wikipedia and the USPS website)