📫 The Time a Town Mailed Itself a Building
A Humorous History Post
In 1916, the small town of Vernal, Utah faced a dilemma. They wanted a solid new bank building made of durable bricks — but they didn’t have easy access to freight rail delivery. The nearest bricks were over 100 miles away in Salt Lake City, and private freight was far too expensive.
Local businessman William H. Coltharp had a bold idea. Since the U.S. Postal Service had just introduced parcel post shipping, why not use it? 🤔
Parcel post shipping, introduced by the USPS in 1913, allowed Americans to send packages (not just letters) through the mail based on weight and distance. It was a revolutionary system that opened up rural commerce and enabled ambitious — and occasionally absurd — shipping feats. 📦📬
🧱 The Brick-by-Brick Plan
Coltharp’s scheme wasn’t just clever — it was economical. Shipping the bricks by parcel post cost significantly less than using private freight companies, which charged high rates for deliveries to remote areas like Vernal. Therefore, by using the mail, Coltharp took advantage of a subsidized system and cut costs while following the letter of the law. 💡💰
So, he mailed 80,000 bricks, each carefully packaged in 50-pound bundles — the maximum allowed by the USPS. That totaled over 40 tons of material, broken into 3,500 individual parcels. 😲
The bricks traveled by train, stagecoach, and wagon, passing through four separate post offices. Eventually, they arrived in Vernal, where they were assembled into the now-famous Bank of Vernal. 🏗️📮
🐌 A Slow and Steady Building
It took weeks of painstaking processing. Although postal workers were overwhelmed, they delivered every last brick. 📪👏
Not surprisingly, the USPS soon rewrote its parcel post rules. As a result, they limited how much an individual could mail per day. Internally, the event became known as “the Vernal Brick Incident.” 😅📏
🏛️ Still Standing
The Bank of Vernal still stands today at 3 West Main Street, Vernal, Utah. It now houses a branch of Zions Bank. 🏦
In fact, there’s even a plaque honoring the legendary story of how the building came to town — by mail. 🏤✨
Sources:
Smithsonian National Postal Museum
Humorous History Series | #WhichStates 😄
