USA HIGHWAY POST OFFICE TRIP COVER - PARKERSBURG AND HUNTINGTON (30.04.1956)

For a long time, the U.S. Post Office used special train cars to move mail. Inside these "Railway Post Offices," workers sorted letters while the train chugged along the tracks. In the late 1930s, America began building better highways. This gave the Post Office a new idea: why not use buses? They created Highway Post Offices, or HPOs. These were large buses that looked like regular post offices on the inside.

The very first HPO trip took place on February 10, 1941. It traveled 149 miles between Washington, D.C., and Harrisonburg, Virginia. More routes soon opened in Indiana and California. However, when World War II began, the government had to focus on the war, and the HPO program was paused.

Once the war ended, the HPO service became a huge success. On April 30, 1956, a new route began between Parkersburg and Huntington, West Virginia. This day was called the "First Trip" because it was the very first time a mail bus ever drove that path. The stamp on the envelope says "Trip 2" because these buses worked in pairs. "Trip 1" was the bus going in one direction (like North), and "Trip 2" was the return journey heading back the other way (like South).