Mail Boat

Lake Mansions Mail Boat

 

U S Mailboat

Mail jumping is a type of mail delivery. The person doing the mail jumping (known as a mail jumper) is transported on a body of water by a boat. The person jumps off the boat onto a dock, places incoming mail in a mailbox, retrieves outgoing mail, and jumps back onto the boat. The boat continues to move at a slow and steady pace (about 5 miles per hour (8 km/h)) while the mail jumper is jumping.

 

coming aboard

 

Lake Geneva residential docks

 

 

mail jumper

The mail jumping delivery system has been employed on houses surrounding Geneva Lake in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States, since before roads were built around the lake in the late nineteenth century. Roads were first built around the lake in the 1920s. Some residents still use boats as their primary means of transportation to their summer homes on the lake including getting groceries.

 

 

 

 

work barge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Six jumpers are hired annually to deliver mail on behalf of the United States Postal Service each summer from June 15 until September 15. Male jumpers were used until the first female was hired in 1969; the cruise line has hired women since. Jumpers began daily at 7 a.m. by sorting mail. Delivery begins at 10 a.m. aboard the U.S. Mailboat Walworth. Mail is delivered to about 60 houses and the delivery is completed by around 1 p.m. A typical jumper misses the jump returning to the boat once in her career and works the rest of the day wet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lake Geneva Cruise Lines operates the boat. It takes approximately 150 tourists along for the ride; jumpers are expected to be able to speak as tour guides as the tour passes historic summer houses and Yerkes Observatory. The jumpers are privately hired by the cruise line and they work closely with the U.S. Postal Office. The Walworth II is the only mail jumping boat in the United States. Mail has been delivered this way since 1873. A local resident said "There was a time during the war when everyone really counted on the mailboat. We didn't have TV and computers and all of that, so everyone would gather to meet the mailboat."

Text from Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

the reason that people put plastic Owls on their docks
to keep the gulls away

 

the restaurant at the South end of the lake

 

 

 

the dome of Yerkes observatory in the background

 

houseboat in the form of a tug

 

 

low Adirondack chair is for the dog

 

work boat

 

mailbox in the form of a golf ball

 

 

 

 

 

boathouse remodeled into a guest house

 

 

 


Lake Mansions Mail Boat

Amish Auctions Antique Auctions Appleton Ballooning Barns Beaver Dam Berlin Cedarburg Chilton Circus World CN Columbus Covered Bridges Cranberries WI Crane Foundation Delavan Denmark Dickeyville Grotto Dodgeville Door County Dousman Stagecoach Inn Fall Colors Fond du Lac Freistadt Germantown Green Bay High Cliff Horicon Marsh Howard's Grove House on the Rock Hustisford Kettle Moraine Lake Geneva Madison Manitowoc Menasha Mequon New Holstein Milwaukee Mineral Point Neshkoro New Glarus Northern WI Omro Oneida Nation Oostburg Oshkosh Plymouth Port Washington Prairie du Chien Racine Richland Center Ripon Road America Rural Wisconsin Saint Nazianz Seth Peterson Cottage Shawano Jerry Schneider Band Sheboygan Sheboygan Falls Small Town Southern WI State Fair State Museum Steam Locomotive Sun Prairie Taliesin Ten Chimneys Thiensville Two Rivers Villa Louis Wade House Waupun WELS Whitewater Whooping Cranes Wisconsin Dells

World Heritage Mosaics Roman World Africa Antarctica Asia Atlantic Islands Australia Caribbean Central America Europe Indian Ocean Middle East North America Pacific Islands South America The Traveler Recent Adventures Adventure Travel

 

People and Places