Although funds were appropriated a month before he left office in 1893, subsequent Postmasters General dragged their feet on inaugurating the new service until 1896. The first experimental rural delivery routes began in West Virginia. Critics of the plan claimed it was impractical and too expensive to trudge over rutted roads and through forests to deliver mail in all kinds of weather. The farmers, without exception, were delighted with the new service. The impact of RFD as a cultural and social agent for millions of Americans was even more striking than its impact on improved roads, bridges and culverts in rural areas.
Rural delivery is still a vital link between industrial and rural America.