July 1, 1913: Mail truck featured on parcel post stamp

In 1912, the United States Postal Service issued a 15-cent parcel post stamp commemorating its first successful fleet of motorized mail trucks - which were built by the Johnson Service Company (as Johnson Controls was known then). On July 1, 1913, this stamp became valid for all postal services, remaining in print through that year before being withdrawn.

As for the trucks, Johnson supplied them under contract with the Milwaukee Post Office beginning in 1907. They were among a number of specialty trucks (including railway line trucks, fire trucks, moving vans, etc.) the Company built between 1901 and 1912.

Reliability was the key to the Johnson mail trucks' success. One truck traveled over 14,000 miles in one year without needing an overhaul! According to a Company truck catalog from 1908, the trucks failed to meet their scheduled delivery times less than one per cent of the time.

Two people, a driver (also provided by Johnson) and a mail collector, comprised the crew of each vehicle. The upper deck design allowed room for the mail collector to stand up at the rear of the truck and obtain letters from mailboxes. Each wagon was fifteen feet long, weighed 3,100 pounds, and had a 35-horsepower engine which produced a maximum speed of thirty miles per hour.

By 1915, the Milwaukee Post Office, seeing the efficacy of motorized mail delivery, decided to purchase its own trucks, and since Johnson Service had sold its automobile and truck manufacturing business to the White Truck Company of Cleveland, Ohio three years earlier, the contract with the Company expired.