The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-11-04
COMPLETE HISTORY OF SERVICE
1T WAS FIRST TRIED NEAR HARRIS
VILE, IND, IN 1896.
The Rural Carrier Now n welcome
Visitor-Many Difficulties Had to
BE Overcome.

Shortly after sunrise on the morning Oh
the 18th day Of October, 1896. there drove
out of the town of Huntsville, Ind, In Bar
tholomew county, the 'Hoosier Schoolmas-
ter country, a man in the service of the
United States government. The one-horse,
one-seated rig which carried him carried
also an insignificant package Of mail mat
ter, scarcely more than two dozen letters
and half many packages and papers.
Along the twenty-four miles Of his way
he called at the houses of barely thirty
farmers. most of whom hardly turned aside
from the milking of their cows and the
feeding of their pigs to greet him. The
greater number OF them had not asked for
him, hardly understood the nature of his
business along their roads and saluted him
with bare nod or a curt word or two.
That man with his small bundle of letters
was among the first of the rural free de-
livery carriers, the first of long line OF
similar governmental servants who have
done more to aid the farmer in the getting
out of life all there is in IL, who have
helped him to reach an equality with men
of the cities and towns who have increased
the value of his lands and who have re-
moved for him many of the unpleasant
bumps of existence, formerly an accepted
portion of rural life than any institution
since Plymouth rock. The man was a
pioneer in the truest sense of the word,
as much entitled to the glory attached to
the ground breakers of America as the
men who felled the forests, who drove the
savage farther into the wilderness and
who laid the foundations of the Northwest
| Territory. The nameless man in his hum
| BILE way is entitled to much of the honor
II II
| George Rogers Clarke, Zebulon Pike, John
| G. Fremont or any of the others of the
| great galaxy of American pioneers. Like
them he represented an idea, and humble
enough in personality was the first ex-
| ponent of plan to give the farmer of
the United States postal service equal
| in all essential respects to that enjoyed
by the resident of his capital city. To him
in the five years just completed has been
/ added 5000 other carriers of rural free de-
| livery mail matter, for in the whole United
| States there are now slightly more than
| that number of routes In Indiana alone
in the five years his labors have been du-
| plicated by 400 governmental servants who
| every morning in the year start on their
| long, often arduous routes. bearers of no
man knows how much comfort and happi-
ness for the homes along their ways. His
| pocketful of letters has increased TO a
he was regarded with indifference he is
now hailed as about the best friend the
| farmer has.
INDIANAS SHOWING.
| Indiana's showing in the free rural de-
| livery sytem of the country is one to be
proud of. OF the 5000 carriers of the whole
country she has 400. Ohio stands first and
| Illinois second, but Indiana is a close third.
| OF the ninety-two counties of the State
sixty-nine are well covered by rural car
riers, and of the twenty-three counties not
yet served four are expected shortly to
have rural free delivery. The greater num-
| Der of the counties benefited by the service
| lie in the northern and central portions
| OF the State, where roads are better rail
| roads more common and the population
/ more thickly settled. Statistics prove tina
| people in northern and central indiana
| write more letters, take more newsDaners
| and, being more alive to the conveniences
OF rural free delivery, are more clamorous
for their representatives at Washington 10
get ii for them than the residents of ths
southern part OF the State The toDoera nj ;,
| of the country in the upper sections Of In
| diana is more favorable to the deveIonnoent
| of the system, the problems of rough chr
| up, hilly country intersected bv had roads
| being comparatively unknown in the north
| ern half Of the State. The followino tabie
never before published, gives the indiana
| counties served by the rural free deIi,rar,,
| system, the number of routes I'm each coI,n
| ty and the counties which have NO S,Ioh
| service: ~i