Curbside Mailboxes Make a Comeback

Once considered by city folk to be quaint anachronisms of the post office’s rural delivery, curbside mailboxes today are the receptacle of choice for the U.S. Postal Service.

So much so that the Postal Service now requires all new residential developments--houses, condominiums and apartments--to have curbside mailboxes, rather than door slots or mailboxes at the door, said Mike Cannone, communications manager for the Postal Service in San Diego.

Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night may keep mail couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds--as the words of Herodotus proclaim on the New York City Post Office--but their method of delivery is changing.

“Virtually all Postal Service deliveries are made by vehicle nowadays,” Cannone said. “It’s quicker and costs about half as much as door delivery. Door-to-door delivery costs about $118 per year, whereas cluster-box delivery costs about $70 per year.”

Mailboxes are as much a part of the present as they were of the past.

Today more than 6 million of them are sold annually in the United States, and, according to Tom Risch, owner of Stony Brae Ltd. of Westport, Conn., a company that supplies mailboxes, the market is growing at better than 15% per year.

Modern mailboxes have come a long way from the days when thrifty farmers nailed a wooden grocery crate to a post. Nowadays, you can buy mailboxes handcrafted of Western red cedar in the shape of a swan, fish, cat or other animal, say John and Patty Tackett, owners of Distinctive Mailboxes in El Cajon, which specializes in home mailboxes.

Others can be made to resemble miniature houses--complete with windows, shake roof and chimney--or decorated with reproductions of wildlife artwork by nationally renowned artists.

Posts have also become decorative. Sturdy 6-by-6-inch wood can be topped with fancy finials, or the posts can be made of cast iron and steel in an antique style reminiscent of the horse-and-buggy days.

Mailbox installations can run anywhere from $69 for a polyethylene box up to $1,000, but most North County residents still seem to prefer the familiar tunnel-shaped box designed and approved by the Postal Service.

The difference in quality, size and construction of this basic style can be substantial when comparing the economy mailboxes sold in large retail outlets to those sold by private mailbox companies.

“Mailboxes sold by companies specializing in the field are usually bigger and made of heavier metal,” Patty Tackett said.

Some are painted with a new powder-coating process, a method of painting metal that makes the box resistant to rust and corrosion, she said.

Manufacturers of these upscale boxes have also developed innovations to make life easier for rural residents. Some models, for example, incorporate trays that slide out with the mail when the door opens. This keeps mail from being left in the back of the box and helps prevent back strain when collecting mail from a car.

Another handy item is a signal panel in either the front or back that is used to indicate when mail has been delivered. These mailboxes can also display the address in large letters in a variety of colors to help emergency vehicles find the home quickly.

In recent years, mailboxes have increasingly become the targets of vandals, most often in the form of “mailbox baseball,” in which the “batter” stands in the back of a pickup truck as it travels down a country road and destroys as many boxes as possible with a bat.

Willful damage of a mailbox is a violation of federal law; it not only involves the local police, it also arouses the interest of federal postal inspectors and can result in a fine of up to $1,000 or three years in prison.

Despite the penalties, mailbox baseball remains enough of a problem that the industry has responded by creating heavy-duty boxes built like vaults. For example, one model manufactured by the Pony Express Company of Tewksbury, Mass., is made with a metal alloy that has a tensile strength of more than 46,000 pounds per square inch and can support more than a ton without damage.

Another model sold by the Stony Brae company has a body manufactured from quarter-inch steel armor plate, formed from a single piece under a 100-ton press. The bottom and back, made of diamond-plate steel, are arc-welded to the body, and the door is held on by tamper-proof hinge-pins of hardened steel. The mailbox weighs more than 55 pounds, and company employees love to show a picture of a baseball bat being broken over its top.

Some vandals like to set off an M-80 (a powerful firecracker) inside a mailbox, John Tackett said.

“When one goes off in a regular inexpensive mailbox . . . it just destroys it,” he said. “With these heavy-duty boxes, all that will happen is the door will blow open.”

Vandalism-proof posts are also available. They are held upright with a plastic shear pin so that if the post is run over or smacked with a baseball bat, the shear pin snaps but the post remains usable.

People who live in rural areas have some leeway in both location and design of their mailboxes. And some people use their mailbox to reflect their personality or their profession.

For example, mailboxes are often altered to resemble barns, tractors, trucks, covered wagons and railroad cabooses. Mailboxes resembling various fruits are popular with farmers. In some parts of the country, old milk cans placed on a post are popular, as are old beer kegs. And more than one postal customer has made a statement by mounting a trash can to serve as a mailbox.

In fact, in rural areas just about anything can be used as long as the local post office approves it.

Those who live in urban areas are more regulated in the type and location of the mailbox. According to Cannone, the trend is toward what the Postal Service calls neighborhood central delivery boxes. These big metal boxes are set on a pedestal and divided into individually locked compartments.

This type of depository is often used in new developments, and is usually placed on a street corner to serve half a block. It is also installed in places where mail carriers can’t make a safe delivery, such as on rural roads that don’t have shoulders.

“The type of mailbox used in the cluster delivery method is determined by the developer, city or county ordinances, or by a community association if there is one,” Cannone said. “Individuals on a street may also negotiate with the post office to determine the type of mailboxes to be used.

“The way the regulations read now, once we establish a method of delivery, it stays that way unless safety reasons cause a change,” he said. “So chances are if you’re getting door delivery now, that will not change.”

Something else that won’t change: Regardless of the method of delivery or the receptacle--an inexpensive box or a $1,000 model--the contents will remain the same: mostly junk mail.

Putting Up That Mailbox

Not all mailbox companies will travel to remote areas in North County to sell and install a single box. The following is a list of those that have indicated they are willing to do so. (However, some will go farther than others.)

In addition, check your local phone directories under the mailbox headings. Some local post offices also maintain a list of mailbox installers in their area:

* Cuttler Mail Handling Equipment. 1-800-634-5475

* Distinctive Mailboxes. 593-7404

* GAMCO, 180 Mace St., Chula Vista. 425-9266

* Mr. Mailbox. 757-9553

* Okell’s Fireplace, 7614 Fay Ave., La Jolla. 632-8522

* Vital Service Co., 10371 Vista Del Cerro Drive, Santee. 448-5820