Last Updated on May 2, 2025 by Matt Staff
Long before tracking numbers and barcode scanners, the U.S. Postal Service powered daily life, and these vintage post office photos prove it. Whether it’s a dusty frontier depot, a 1925 Model T mail truck, or a jam-packed 1950s sorting room, this mix of colorized and black-and-white images offers a vivid time-machine peek at how letters, packages, and people once moved through America’s most trusted institution.
1. A mail carrier in Los Angeles in 1910
Looks like she’s got all the mail stuffed in her pockets.
2. October 1935. Post Office in Nethers, Virginia, in Shenandoah National Park
Seems to be another slow-moving day out in Nethers, Virginia at the Post Office.
3. A postman delivers Christmas mail in Chicago in 1929
This is the real Santa.
4. Four special delivery postmen are trying Autoped Scooters in Washington, D.C. in 1916
5. A postal worker in a mail car on a train circa 1890s
This car served as the train’s mobile post office. At every station the clerk grabbed the waiting mailbag, sorted its letters into the onboard cubbies while the train rolled along, then dropped off the sorted mail at the next stop, collected a fresh sack, and kept the process going for the entire route.
6. Another scene from the post office and store at Nethers, Virginia, 1935
The folks out in Nethers, Virginia really knew how to post up at the Post Office back in the day.
7. Post Office in Gemmell, MN, 1937
This shot’s just right out of a postcard.
8. Ford Model T – U.S. Postal Service Truck (1925)
Who even knows how many precious letters this truck was responsible for hauling around town.
9. A U.S. Postal Officer and his handy mailbox from way back in the day
You would not want to get in the way of this lad delivering his mail.
10. Stage in front of the post office, Pie Town, NM, June 1940
You already know that this car could fetch a pretty penny nowadays.
11. First Class mail pours down a chute on its way to the cancelling machines at the General Post Office (1955)
This poor guy is absolutely in over his head.
12. December, 1929. Christmas rush at the Post Office package room on Van Buren Street, Chicago, Illinois
The Christmas rush at the Post Office had to have been the stuff of nightmares.
13. Someone’s grandma holding it down at the post office in 1959
It looks like this grandma took her job extra serious at the Post Office.
14. New Yorkers line up at a special post office station created to facilitate the handling of holiday gifts and other Christmas mail (1976)
Seems like an efficient facilitator.
15. Sending it back to a post office all the way back in 1911
Post Offices nowadays are in no way built like they used to be.
16. Women sorting mail in this Post Office Xmas photo from the 1920s
Those had to have felt like endless shifts on the clock.
17. U.S. Post Office, Shawneetown, Illinois – April 1937
The fits here are really on point.
18. In 1940, farmers sit outside the post office on a Saturday afternoon. Linwood, Kentucky, USA
Yes, nothing quite like an easy-rolling afternoon at the Post Office.
19. New York Post Office around 1905
The colors really make this one pop.
20. 1906 Montgomery Post Office, Alabama
That Post Office knows how to tell people the time of day. That’s for sure.
21. Post office and general store in Castolon, Texas, circa 1939
Because why not have your post office and general store paired up together? Maximal convenience.
22. 1917 U.S. Postal carrier Clara Page
I wonder if her dog barked at other mail delivery people?
23. Postal workers listening to music while sorting the mail in 1973
I’ll be honest: This is a lot cleaner and more organized than I would have imagined.
Love old snapshots?
Saddle up for our 30 Vintage Photos Showing Life on the American Frontier, steam ahead with 18 Vintage Photos From the Transcontinental Railroad That Built America, and explore pure Americana with 29 Photos of American Diners (1930s – 1970s).
