USPS Rural Delivery Factoids

Linda Shockley

• The Postal Service established free delivery of mail to rural areas in 1896.
• The longest rural mail route in the United States is 173 miles in Lamont, Oklahoma, serving 158 regular mailboxes.
• The shortest rural mail route in the United States is 1.9 miles in Henderson, Nevada, serving 695 centralized boxes.
• The average rural mail route is 45 miles long and serves 493 mailboxes.
• More than 20,000 rural routes nationwide now have postal vehicles assigned to them instead of a rural carrier’s own private car or truck.
• The Postal Service adds an average of seven new rural mail routes each business day, due to growth nationwide.
• More than 20 million customers nationwide use post office boxes.