Utah businessman used postal service to ship bricks for bank construction
William Horace Coltharp sent 15,000 bricks via Parcel Post to avoid high freight costs in 1916.
In 1916, William Horace Coltharp used the American Parcel Post system to transport thousands of bricks for the construction of the Bank of Vernal in Utah, according to the Times of India.
Coltharp sought to move decorative pressed bricks from the Salt Lake Pressed Brick Company, located approximately 125 miles away, to Vernal.
The Times of India reported that shipping the bricks through traditional freight routes would have cost more than four times their value due to the mountainous landscape.
To save money, Coltharp had individual bricks wrapped in boxes weighing about 50 pounds each to take advantage of postal rates based on direct distance.
The shipment eventually included about 15,000 bricks, totaling roughly 37.5 tons or 75,000 pounds, according to Medium.
The volume of deliveries overwhelmed the Vernal post office and the Uintah Railroad, which was responsible for hauling the parcels.
Following the incident, the Post Office Department implemented a new rule stating that a single sender could not mail more than 200 pounds of parcels to one recipient in a day.
