The birth story of ZIP codes: An interesting tale indeed! 

Gone are the days when people used to send and receive hand-written letters via post offices. However, in today’s times, we do get deliveries from e-commerce platforms and through couriers. Now, when these deliveries come, what do you see on the envelopes attached? There’s quite a bit of writing, isn’t it? It contains your name, phone number and address.  

Tell us something, what all goes as part of the address? Of course, the name and number of the street you live in, the name of your city/town, followed by the state. Oh wait. Aren’t we missing something important? Yes, the postal code. In fact, it’s the most important part that helps the delivery person identify your house.  

Now, just like we have postal codes (colloquially called pin codes) in India, USA has something called ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) codes. They too are postal codes that are part of addresses served especially by the US Postal Service, and primarily consist of a five- or nine-digit number. In fact, it was right after USA came up with ZIP codes that the rest of the world too found their own equivalents. Do you know how these ZIP codes were born? That’s quite a story in itself. 

US postal inspector had an idea! 
Statistics reveal that in 2018, the US Postal Service (or USPS) had shipped more than 146 billion mails and packages. It’s impossible to even imagine how, in the absence of ZIP code, would they have managed to deliver them so smoothly. Well, there was a time when the ZIP codes didn’t exist. Back then, all USPS clerks had to be geography experts knowing all the nooks and corners of cities, towns and even remote areas (imagine Alaska!) in order to ensure that all mails and deliveries reached the correct location. But imagine the hours that went into the sorting!  

Things worsened when USPS employees had to join the US army during World War II. As a result, USPS had to hire a fresh batch of workers who had no prior knowledge or training to sort and deliver mail and packages within a stipulated time frame. During this time of crisis, mail delivery drastically slowed down and in turn affected all kinds of communication, both public (government included) and personal. To make matters worse, some mails and packages either got lost or never got delivered.  

In such a scenario, a US postal inspector named Robert Moon came up with an idea. To ensure that the mails reached the correct addresses that too quickly, he devised an easy way for the employees to know where exactly to send them. He designed a system of numbers that could help mail clerks find out the destination effortlessly. He proposed three numbers after each address: the first to identify the region (East Coast would begin with “0” and move on to the West Coast ending in “9”), and the next two to identify the city. Having formulated this solution, Moon immediately presented it to his USPS bosses. 

Okay, but did USPS accept Moon’s idea? 
Yes, they certainly did. However, they also made some modifications to it. For instance, they added two more numbers after the first three to pinpoint the exact location within each city. This particular addition was proposed by another USPS legend, Henry Bentley Hahn, Sr. Thus, the first ever ZIP code had five numbers in total.  

The term ZIP code was coined by D. Jamison Cain, a USPS executive. By 1963, ZIP code was actively in place and widely used all across USA.  

What’s interesting however is that, contrary to the mail clerks who found the new system extremely useful, American citizens didn’t really like them at first. In order to encourage them use ZIP codes, USPS created a cartoon character named Mr. ZIP. All kinds of commercials, be it on TV or banners on road featured Mr. ZIP. Guess what was the result? By 1969, over 80 per cent Americans were using ZIP codes. However, it wasn’t until 1983 that the 9-digit ZIP code came into being. This was called ZIP+4 and contained the five-digit ZIP followed by a four-digit specified location, separated by a hyphen.