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Show First Railroad Post Office Carried Mail to Soldiers Eighty years ago the first permanent perma-nent railroad post office was established estab-lished to speed up mail for soldiers. On August 28. 1864, George B. Armstrong, Arm-strong, then assistant postmaster of Chicago, sent his first railway post office on its way over the Chicago aid North Western railway from Chicago to Clinton, Iowa. Within a few years the new system of ex- j pediting the mails spread to include the principal trunk lines of the nation. na-tion. Practically every nation in the world adopted the idea eventually. Armstrong instituted the service with approval of the postmaster general as a means of facilitating distribution of mail, particularly to men in the army. From the first, Armstrong envisioned a national system and lived to see his plan become a success, r.espite public doubis and ridicule when he firs' announced his plan. On the first trip 80 years ago prominent Chicago newspapermen, j ! bankers and civic leaders went j along to witness the initial opera-j opera-j tion. One banker refused to be convinced con-vinced of the plan's practicability. I remarking that "all the mail would ' blow out of the car." i Although Armstrong is generally j credited with the first permanent i railway post office, others preceded ! him by a few years with similar plans. All. however, were devised to meet local emergencies and no plan operated more than a year. |