The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper The Spokesman-Review
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
Current Temperature
38°F
Current Conditions
Overcast clouds
View complete weather report

Color Scheme

Subscribe now

Then and Now: Fast Mail Train

Present day: Spokane’s historic Clocktower in Riverfront Park was once part of the Great Northern Railway depot, built in 1902 on the banks of the Spokane River. The tower was spared in the early 1970s as the Great Northern depot and Union Station were being torn down to clear the land for Expo ’74. A Railway Mail Terminal sat nearby next to the Howard Street Bridge from 1913 to 1973. (Jesse Tinsley/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)
Present day: Spokane’s historic Clocktower in Riverfront Park was once part of the Great Northern Railway depot, built in 1902 on the banks of the Spokane River. The tower was spared in the early 1970s as the Great Northern depot and Union Station were being torn down to clear the land for Expo ’74. A Railway Mail Terminal sat nearby next to the Howard Street Bridge from 1913 to 1973. (Jesse Tinsley/THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW)
By Jesse Tinsley jesset@spokesman.com(509) 459-5378

The Great Northern Fast Mail train No. 27 came through Spokane every evening in the early 20th century. Its route from Chicago to the West Coast took more than 47 hours but was the fastest way to send a letter before air mail. The Railway Mail Service’s clerks sorted mail on trains as they sped across the vast plains of the Western states.

The Post Office started using trains as early as the 1830s.

But it was George B. Armstrong, the first general superintendent of the Railway Mail Service started in 1869, who came up with the idea of special trains where clerks sorted mail while underway. In a few years, the country had many “fast mail” trains in every region.

The term “fast mail train” described short assemblies of mail cars that may be attached to other trains or could bypass slower trains to reach their destinations faster. Clerks would collect mail bags hanging from hooks as they passed small towns.

In 1898, 42 mail clerks were running in and out of Spokane in all directions. In 1907, there were 70.

The longest run in the country went through Spokane: 1,500 miles from Williston, North Dakota, to Portland.

In February 1910, the Fast Mail No. 27 and a passenger train, which were parked because of heavy snows, were swept off the tracks in the Cascade Mountains by a massive avalanche, killing 96 people, making it one of the deadliest train disasters in history.

In 1913, a postal sorting facility was built by the Great Northern depot on Havermale Island in Spokane. It was called the Railway Mail Terminal or the Post Office Annex.

During spates of train robberies in the 1890s and early 1900s, postal clerks carried handguns.

The workers unloading mail bags in the photo on page B1 have not been identified. George Yamada (1923-2017) said in a 2006 interview that his father, a Japanese immigrant, handled mail at the Great Northern Depot but was fired because of security fears in the wake of the Pearl Harbor attacks in 1941. Yamada said his father and others were eventually rehired a month later.

Spokane’s Railway Mail Terminal was closed in 1960 and torn down in 1973 for Expo ’74.

The last run by a Railway Mail Service car was in 1977.