Screen Parcel Post

Screen wagons were introduced in Texas in 1886 as a secure vehicle for transporting mail. By 1895, screen wagons were used in nearly 100 urban centers. Within a year, the screen wagons began to replace the earlier, fancier wagons as the regulation wagon of the Post Office Department. The Post Office Department instituted Parcel Post Service in 1913. These screen wagons hauled the increasing number of package deliveries for the years before the automobile. By the end of the 1910s, the automobile had become the dominant form of delivery. Note the parcel wagon is larger than the screen mail wagon that was introduced years earlier. This wagon's interior is not fully screened; part of the interior is protected by the walls of the wagon itself.

Screen Parcel Post Wagon: Image courtesy of the Smithsonian National Postal Museum online exhibit