40
COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES
o f mice made their home in a pouch that had lain in the post office for several days. When (he pouch nnally reached its destination^ near the upper shores o f Lake Superior, the receiv ing postmaster found not only the rodent homeseekers, but also a larger fam ily o f little mice. They had made beds o f chewcd-up let ters. T he postmaster reported the matter to the Chicago office and sent along the mice as an exhibit, which was received by George B . Arntstrong, (he assistant postmaster. T o pre vent the repetition o f such an occurrence A rm strong sought to speed up the mail service, and finally evolved the Idea of having the mail dis tributed on the trains while in transit. The plan w as ridiculed. One man declared: "T he government will have to employ a regiment of men to follow the trains to pick up the letters that would be blown out of the cars.” H o w o 'er, the first postal car, an prdinar>* haggagc car equipped with racks and pigeon holes, made its initial run from Chicago to Ointon, Iowa, over fifty years ago. and today every nation in the civilized world is dis tributing a large part o f its mail matter in railw ay mail cars. In the United States over eighteen thousand railw ay mail clerks are separating over ninety per cent o f all the mail originating in this country and a large volume coming from foreign lands. T hey have sepa rated in a single year nearly twenty-three bil lion pieces o f mail matter, not including reg istered mail. T hey travel an aggr<^ate dis tance o f five hundred million miles every year on the twenty-seven thousand domestic trans portation routes having a combined mileage o f four hundred and fifty thousand miles. T he scr’icc has been raised to the highest point o f efficiency to-day and (he present ratio o f errors in distribution has been reduced to one tn ten thousand pieces o f mail. T he clerks are ex(>ected to distribute the mail so that there will be no rcliandling in the {>ost offices o f large cities, and to separate it into packages corres ponding with each mail carrier’s route in the cities. In the case of the largest cities they must separate it according to sections or sub stations. Considering the speed at which the clerks sort the mail, the swaying of the train plunging along at fifty mites an hour, and the thousands o f railway connecting points, the locations o f over sixty thousand post offices in the United States and the frequent illegi bility of the hand written addresses, it becomes a marvel how the railway mail clerk can work without a greater proportion o f errors.
P ost Offices in Columbia County, 9^14 Alm cdift A ristcs B eaver V a i l c y ^ i
Benton^ Berwick—3
Bloom sburg— 5 B riar C rcdc Buck born Catawissa— 5 Central Centralia E lk G rove Espy E ycr's G ro ve i*'ishixig Creek F ork s— t
lo la (discontinued July 1st) Jamison C ity— ) Jerseytow n— z U g k t S treet— t L im e R id ge M a in ville— I M ifitin ville M tU rille— 3 N u m idia O ra n geville— z P in e Suom ut R oarin g C reek— 1 R o h r ffm r g - 1 Rupert S tillw a ter— ) W)1 burton
Post Offices in M ontour County, 19 14 D an ville— y Ottawa S traw b erry K idge E xchange G rovania W ash in gton ville Mausdale W h ite H all Moorc%burg
- T h e figure a fte r the name o f tite office indicates
the number o f rural routes em anating th erefrom .
STATE IIIG U W A V DEFAKTMeNT
F o r many years Pennsylvania lu s stood almost at the bottom of the list o f States in the matter o f good roads. PIxcept in a few isolated instances, very little aid has been given in the past lo the builders o f roads here by the State. T he first act for the establishment o f a H ighw ay Department w as that o f 1903. w hkh w as supplemented by the acts o f 1905 and 1907. T he act under which the present State H ighw ay Department is operated is commonly known as the "Sp ro u l Road A ct,” enacted by the 1 9 11 session of the Legislature, and approved in M ay o f that year by (rov. Jo h n K . Tcner. T his act called fo r a reorganization of the existing State H ighway Department, and pro vided for the taking over as State highways the roads comprising 29O specified routes, forming connecting links between county seats and the principal cities and towns, and in ad dition form ing trunk lines extending from one end of the State to the other. T he act pro vided that the new department should have full charge o f maintaining and constructing these routes after Ju n e i. 1 9 1 2; carry on e x isting State-aid contracts; and furtlier provulcd for (he improvement o f township roads to the extent o f two million dollars, fifty per cent o f which w as to Ik supplied by the State, and the other fifty per cent by the county or township applying for aid.
