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Empty crates site next to a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mail box in New York, U.S., on Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. The U.S. Postal Service said its net loss last year widened to $15.9 billion, more than the $15 billion it had projected, as mail volume continued to drop, falling 5 percent. Photograph: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
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A post office worker shows to an Israeli child how to wear a gas mask at a gas mask kit distribution station in a mall Jan. 31, 2013, in Pisgat Ze'ev, East Jerusalem, Israel. Israel remains on high alert after the Israeli air force reportedly launched an airstrike Jan. 30, on a convoy that Israeli officials said was carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon on the Syria-Lebanon border.
Illustration by Todd Detwiler for TIME
Retrieving the Post Office. Six surprising ways to serve a nation with less snail mail.
Thao Nguyen / AP
Lance Armstrong pauses during an interview in Austin, Texas on Feb. 15, 2011. The Justice Department laid out its case in a lawsuit against Lance Armstrong on Tuesday, Apriil 23, 2013 saying the cyclist violated his contract with the U.S. Postal Service and was "unjustly enriched" while cheating to win the Tour de France.
Chuck Berman / Chicago Tribute / MCT / Getty Images
The post office in the town of Millington, Illinois, pop. 665, one of many small town post offices slated to close as a result of the financial problems facing the U.S. Postal Service.
George Skadding—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Post office, Washington D.C., 1944.
Myron Davis—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Post office, Washington D.C., 1942.
Photograph by Greg Miller for TIME
Post Office Closing
Mike Groll / AP
A U.S. Postal Service worker walks in the snow in Rensselaer, N.Y. Areas of upstate New York received several inches of snow, and more is expected.
Mike Groll / AP
A U.S. Postal Service vehicle drives on a snow covered road in Westerlo, N.Y., Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008
FORT COLLINS COLORADOAN/AP
U.S. Postal Service inspectors in Fort Collins, Colo.
Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Empty crates sit next to a U.S. Postal Service mail box in New York.
Bernard Hoffman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Rockefeller Center Post Office, 1941.
Myron Davis—TIME & LIFE Pictures/Getty Images
Not originally published in LIFE. Paper has long been an important part of the Pentagon culture; the Department of Defense Post Office deals with about 1.2 million pieces of mail monthly.
Francis Miller—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Self-service, 24-hour automated post office, Maryland, 1964.
AP / Robert Ray
US Post Office in Lawrence, Mich.
Michael Rougier—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Singing cowboy Gene Autry (second from left) stands outside the post office in an Oklahoma town named for him, 1948.
Photograph by Matthieu Gafsou for TIME
"Home Office" The Zug post office is the
address of thousands of companies
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Tin Aung moves boxes of letters and cards at the U.S. Post Office sort center in San Francisco on Dec. 15, 2008
Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Cartons of mail ready to be sorted sit on a shelf at the U.S. Post Office sort center on August 12, 2011 in San Francisco, California.
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Stacks of boxes holding cards and letters are seen at the U.S. Post Office sort center in San Francisco, California.
The Boy Scouts of America is one of those enduring institutions woven so deeply into the fabric of so many lives that it sometimes feels like it’s been around as...
Martha Holmes (b. Louisville, Ky., Feb. 7, 1923) was on the staff of LIFE for five years in the 1940s and worked for three decades as a freelancer for the...
