The Oskaloosa herald. (Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, Iowa) 1885-1919, 1909-05-06
GREATEST MAIL
HOPPER IN U. S.
Nations Biggest Postal Business Is
Done In Chicago.
SYSTEM WHICH SAVES THE DAY
canceIing Machines, Pneumatic Tubes
and other Devices Make Posi-
BILE Handling 100000
Pieces Daily.

poor guess. few years ago when
he built post Office for Chicago. for
the city is now his biggest mail hop
per and the post Office long since was
outgrown. Daily 500 tons of mall
from every part of the globe pours
through the hopper and the total
grows amazingly,
Mails crossing the continent IN
transfer and the mails of all the con-
verging railways make tremendous
problem in handling. The daily aver
age mai. matter handled, excluding
Sunday, is about 4,oOv,000 pieces OF
all kinds. Several times within the
last three years the cancelling ma
chimes passed the 100000 mark on
letters alone.
Incoming pouches and sacks are
being received at the rate of $500 a
day, while nearly double that num-
Der is distributed. Stated in another
way. nearly 100000 incoming sacks
will be handled in 1909 at the present
rate, and probably 5,5o0,000 will be
distributed. More than $4,000 tons
of newspapers and periodicals will be
weighed, handled and distributed
this year. 1t must be remembered
that Chicago is away up front in the
publishing business nowadays, hav-
ing put Boston into the ''hasbeen'
class and achieved among other
things the record of the largest mag
azine circulation in the world in
Woman's World which George H. Cur
rier was printing nine years ago in
one room of an Office building and
now delivers in carloads of over y.
DOT. 900 copies. He now mails 5,00O,-
900 pounds of Woman's World in a
year Many other publishers run the
total up to a huge hgure.
To handle this matter the post of"
flee department has on its Chicago
pay rolls near, men, about
half of whom work in or travel from
the main Office, the remaining being
stationed at the branch post offices,
or stations" scattered through the
city. The post Office, though out
grown, is not exactly tiny, either. for
it occupies the greater part of 10
acres of floor space in a building 800
by $40 feet and $50 feet high.
Letter mail dropped into the thous-
ands OF letter boxes of the city is
collected by carriers and delivered to
wagons or trolley mali cars. When
1t reaches the Office it is thrown into
one of the thirteen steel chutes in
Dearborn street.
When the contents of the car or
wagon are delivered to the chute the
receiving mouth is closed and the
load is weighed and then dropped
upon a moving belt thirty-six inches
wide, which conveys its load OF hun
dreds of bags to a second belt that
moves up an incline at the rate OF
900 feet per minute. The inclined
belt throws the sacks to a third belt
moving at right angles, and the third
belt delivers the mail to one of sew
en- lifts or bucket elevators, that dump
the bags onto platform on the sec
ond floor, sixty feet above. .sy
A force of men here empties the
bags into one of two compartment
hopper cars that are arranged so that
they dump into any one of the twenty
one hoppers over series of eight
tables. Scores of men at these ia
bles stack" the mail-in other words,
face the pieces, feeding them into an
automatic stacker-a moving belt
device that stacks letters and con.
veys them on edge to the canceling
machines.
There are thirteen of these cancel.
ing machines, which the government
leases from the patentee. Each ma
chine handles an average of 500 to
900 pieces per minute, canceling the
stamps and printing the postmark,
the hour and minute being changed
automatically.
After the mail is cancelled and
postmarked it falls into baskets,
which are carried TO the primary
distribution" tables. Here the mail
is sorted by states, or by groups OF
states, and packed into steel trays
or cars. seven and one-half inches
wide, thirty inches long and six
inches deep. These little cars when
filed are set onto a moving belt con-
veyor that circles around three sides
OF the second floor, carrying the mail
to cases. where it is distributed into
railway post Office routes. city routes,
etc.
These little cars have an lngen
ious arrangement by which they
switch themselves off at the proper
station. They are emptied by the
clerks at the table, who sort the mail
into railway postal routes and place
It. tied in packages. on belt carrier