Orr and Painter

In the early 1880s, Orr & Painter iron manufacturers began to produce another type of mailbox. This new cast-iron box could be hung anywhere from telegraph poles to the sides of buildings. This image below is a remnant of an Orr & Painter mailbox recovered from the 1889 Johnstown flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Post Office ordered a new box design in 1889, thus this type of box would likely have been predominant only in the 1880s. Note that patrons deposited mail into a small slot on the arched end of the box.

Orr and Painter Mailbox: Image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum online exhibit