On Tue, 14 Feb 2017 23:26:59 -0000, Dean Hoffman wrote:

On 2/13/17 9:51 PM, James Wilkinson Sword wrote:
On Tue, 14 Feb 2017 02:30:58 -0000, Dean Hoffman
wrote:


It is common in parts of rural Nebraska to have several mailboxes
grouped on
their own posts. It will be up to the ranchers to get their mail from
there.
There isn't delivery to individual houses.
There might also be a post there with signs pointing to the
individual ranches.
Each sign would be a single board cut to make an arrow. It might say
something
like Too Poor Ranch 12 miles.

If I lived in one of those ranches, I'd have a lock on the box!

My parents farmed in the south central part of the state.
People owned a lot
less ground in the farming areas than in ranch country. Houses would
typically be only a few hundred feet from the road, if that. People
also knew about when the mail carriers stopped by. They and the mail
carriers would recognize each other if they met in town or some social
event. Single mailboxes were at the entrances to the individual
driveways. Nobody had locked mailboxes in this area either.
The carriers would take the packages to the house. Sometimes
they'd leave a card in the box saying the patron needed go to the post
office in town. A person could leave money with a card to order stamps
from the carrier.
There was one time that I remember the mailboxes posed a problem.
Some fool was planting bombs in them. Postal carriers asked everyone
to leave the boxes open.
A bit here about the bombs:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/15/mailbox-bomb-suspect/2164129/

That happens every so often in the UK with public post boxes (where you place letters outgoing).

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