Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-04-28
Over 4,5oo,ooo Pieces
Handled Daily.
Nearly 5000 Men Are En-
.pIoyed In Post Office.
Building Is Too Small Although
Occupying IS Acres.

Chicago, april 27.-Cncle Sam made
poor guess few years ago when ne
built postoffice for Chicago, for the
city Is now his biggest mail hopper and
tho post0ffice long since was outgrown.
Daily 800 tons of mail from every part
of the globe pours through the hopper
and tile total grows amazingly.
Mails crossing the continent in trans
fer and the mails OF all the cOnverging
railways make a tremendous problem
in handling. The daily average mail
matter handled. excluding Sunday, is
about 4,5OO, 900 pieces of all kinds. Sew
eral times within the last three years
the cancelling machines passed the q
500, .p0O4mark on letters alone.
Incoming pouches and sacks are be-
ing received at the rate of $500 day,
while nearly double that number is dis
trihuted. stated iii another way. near
ly 3,500,000 incoming sacks will be han
died In 1an9 at the present rate, and
probably 5,501,0OO will be distributed.
More than $4,000 tons OF newspa pers
and periodicals will be weighed, han
died and distributed this year. It
must be remembered that Chicago is
way up front in the publishing business
nowadays, having put Boston
into the "hasbcen" class and achieved
among other things the record of the
largest magazine circulation in the
world.
ITO handle this matter the postOffice
department has On its Chicago pay
rolls nearly 5000 men. about half of
whom work in or travel from the main
Office. the remaining being stationed at
the branch pOstofticc, or stations"
scattered through the city. The post
office, though Outgrcwn, is not exactly
tiny either. for il occupies the greater
part of II acres of floor space in a
building 300 by $40 feet and $50 feet
high.
Letter mail dropped into the thous-
ands OF letter boxes of the city is COL
lected by carriers and delivered to
wagons or trolley mail cars. When it
reaches tho Office it is thrown into one
Of the thirteen steel chutes in Dearborn
street
When the contents of the car or wa
gon are delivered to the chute the re-
ceiving mouth is closed and the load is
weighed and then dropped upon NOV
ing belt thirty-six inches wide which
conveys it's load of hundreds of bags to
a second Eelt that moves up an incline
at the rate of coo feet per minute. The
inclined belt throws the sacks to a
third belt moving at right angles. and
the thirti belt delivers the mail to one
of seven lifts, or bucket elevators, that
dump the bags onto platform on the
second floor. sixty feet above.
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 twenty-one
hOppers oyer series OF eight tables.
Scores OF men ut these tables stack
the mail-in other words. face the
pieces feeding them into an automatic
stacker--a moving belt device that
stacks letters and conveys them on
edge to the canceling machine.
There are thirteen Of these canceling
machines. which the government leases
from the patentee. Each machine ham
dies an average of 500 to 600 pieces per
minute, conceling tn stamps and print
ing the pOstmerl, the hour and minute
being changed automatically.
After the mail is Cancelled and post
marked 1t falls into baskets which are
carried to the primary distributor
tables. Here the mail is sorted by
states. or by groups of states and pack
edf into steel trays or cars. seven and
One-half inches wide, thirty inches long
and six inches deep. These little cars
when filled are set onto a moving belt
conveyOr that circles around three sides
OF the second floor, carrying the mail to
cases, where 1t Is distributed into rail-
way postOif1ce routes, city routes. etc.
These little cars have an ingenious
arrangement by which they switch
themselves off at the proper station
They are cnptied by the clerks at the
table, who sort the mail into railway
postal routes aud place, it. tied in pack
ages, on a belt carrier which takes il
to the receiving station. b..
The pneumatic tube service is used
in part to send the mail to several OF
the important railroad stations. but be-
cause of disputes regarding Il munich
pal franchise the service may not be
extended. though ii effects great saving
In time.
This underground pneumatic tube
system is TIE largest Of the kind in the
world. There are three double tube
trunk lines. aggregating over eighteen
miles of eight inch castiron pipe. OF
these lines the stock yards branch is
tho longest the station being six and
one-half miles. from the postoffice, re-
curing thirteen miles of pipe. A con-
tinuous current Of air. moving thirty
miles per hour, is forced through these
pines. The cartridge. or carrier that
conveys the mai through the tubes has
capacity of 500 letters. Carriers are
sent during the busiest hours every
thirteen seconds.