Daily printout: April 28

The Postal Service has released a special image the organization will use to celebrate its 250th anniversary.

Known as Eagle in Flight, the image was designed in collaboration with the Turner Duckworth branding agency and is meant to symbolize the organization’s past, present and future.

On July 26, 1775, the Second Continental Congress established “a line of posts” from Maine to Georgia, to create a network of communications that kept Colonists’ messages from falling into the British Crown’s hands.

This postal system later became the Post Office Department and then the U.S. Postal Service.

The Eagle in Flight image depicts an eagle about to take wing, perched atop the phrase “USPS 250” in the traditional USPS colors of red, white and blue. It will be used for 250th anniversary activities and on branded products.

This image does not replace the “sonic eagle” logo that USPS has used since 1993 but will be used to help celebrate the organization’s anniversary throughout 2025.

“The founders of our great nation saw the intrinsic need of postal services as the United States was born — even before the country itself was formed. Since that time, our universal mail system has strengthened the bonds of friendship, family and community,” said acting Postmaster General Doug Tulino.

“The Postal Service remains a great organization connecting our nation and helping power our economy. We are proud to help set the stage for the 250th anniversary of the United States next year, and we look forward to continuing to serve the American public for another 250 years.”

USPS will commemorate the milestone anniversary with special activities and releases throughout the year, including a coffee table book, a new edition of “The United States Postal Service: An American History,” branded merchandise, stamps and more.

Email us your feedback. Your comments could be included in our “Mail” column.

By 1875, the Post Office Department was firmly ensconced both at home and abroad, having become part of the executive branch in 1872 and a founding member of the General Postal Union (now the Universal Postal Union) in 1874.

The 1880s were a time of big gains for letter carriers, who helped deliver wins for the nascent labor movement.

In 1884, Congress granted carriers 15 days of leave a year, and in 1888, it awarded them an eight-hour workday. The National Association of Letter Carriers union was formed in Milwaukee the next year, 1889.

Beginning in the late 1880s, a scruffy mutt named Owney became the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail Service for several years, and his adventures became the stuff of legend.

The philatelic world was venturing forth, too. In 1893, the country’s first commemorative stamp — nearly double the size of a typical stamp — was issued in celebration of the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Other innovations soon followed, including the first stamps sold in booklets in 1900 and coils in 1908.

But the most dramatic forays came in the transport and delivery of mail. Pneumatic tube service was tested in Philadelphia in 1893 and an electric automobile was tried out for collection in Buffalo in 1899.

A contract for mail collection by gas-powered automobile began in Baltimore in 1906, and rural free delivery — launched in 1896 in West Virginia — proved so popular it spread to every state in the union and was made permanent in 1902.

No advance was more daring than the Post Office Department’s entrance into the world of aviation, when postal pilots took over airmail service from their Army counterparts in 1918. By 1924, regularly scheduled transcontinental airmail service with night flying was established.

But that was just the beginning: The organization blazed a trail in the field of commercial aviation in the following years.

Coming next: Link’s series on the Postal Service’s 250th anniversary will continue soon with a look at events from 1925-1974.

The National Postal Forum, the mailing and shipping industry’s largest annual conference, will be held from Sunday, April 27, through Wednesday, April 30, at the Gaylord Opry Convention Center in Nashville, TN.

The conference allows attendees to discover new tools, technologies and services to improve their mailing and shipping operations.

Other highlights will include a keynote address from Acting Postmaster General Doug Tulino, more than 120 educational workshops, eight USPS leadership insight sessions and daily networking events.

The National Postal Forum’s website has more information.