Sorry, you have Javascript Disabled! To see this page as it is meant to appear, please enable your Javascript!

Skip to content

Home
Visit
Education
Library
Museum
Shop
- Philatelic Sales Department
- Book Sale Catalogs
Post office
Support
Latest
- Calendar
- Newsletter
- Blog
In the News
About NPEC
- Our History
- FAQ
Contact

Search for:

Digital Exhibits

Explore postal history, Arizona history, and related topics through our digital exhibits. Some exhibits are hosted directly on our website, while others are available through the Arizona Memory Project.

NPEC-Contributed Exhibits on the Arizona Memory Project

Arizona Automobile Correspondence
Arizona Territorial Post Offices
Postal Campaigns — Tucson, Arizona and Surrounding Areas
Rosa Ronquillo Rhodes — The Life of the Redington Ranch Postmistress
Territorial and Early Statehood Arizona Postcards

Collaborative Exhibits on the Arizona Memory Project

American Flag Ranch and Acadia Ranch: The Story of Oracle’s Post Offices
Between the Tracks: The Story of the Old Vail Post Office
Jerome Postal History

Exhibits Hosted on Our Website

Arizona’s Postal History
Heliograph — a former journal of our organization, published when it was known as the Postal History Foundation
Black Americans on Postage Stamps

Search for:

Home
Visit
Education Main Page
Slusser Library
Museum
Philatelic sales
- Book Sale Catalogs
Support
About
Latest
Site map
Stamp Discovery Store for Educators
My Discovery Store account

Explore

Events Calendar

Stamp Tracks Newsletter

Search for:

Program & Services

Educational Resources

Postal History Museum

Slusser Library

Philatelic Store

Contract Postal Unit

Contact Us

920 N 1st Ave Tucson AZ 85719
520-623-6652
info@phftucson.org

The National Postal Education Center inspires curiosity and lifelong learning through stamps, postal history, educational programs, and its library, museum, and philatelic resources.

Copyright © 2013-2026 National Postal Education Center

Terms of use | Privacy policy | Site map

Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable

Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable

Anna Julia Cooper

Booker T. Washington

Mary McLeod Bethune

Frederick Douglass

Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.

Benjamin O. Davis, Sr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Carter G. Woodson

Whitney Moore Young

Sojourner Truth

A. Philip Randolph

C Alfred "Chief" Anderson

Matthew Henson (with Robert E. Peary)

C Alfred "Chief" Anderson

Shirley Chisholm

Patricia Robert Harris

Clifton R. Wharton, Sr.

Thurgood Marshall

Shirley Chisholm

Benjamin Banneker

John H. Johnson

Madame C.J. Walker

Benjamin Banneker

George Washington Carver

Percy Lavon Julian

Charles R. Drew

Jan E. Matzeliger

George Washington Carver

Gwendolyn Brooks

Charles W. Chestnut

Carter G. Woodson

James Weldon Johnson

Zora Neal Hurston

Langston Hughes

Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Jackie Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson

Wilt Chamberlain

Jackie Robinson

Henry Ossawa Tanner

Robert Robinson Taylor

Henry Ossawa Tanner

Hattie McDaniel

Hattie McDaniel

Katherine Dunham

Singers and Songwriters

Ella Fitzgerald

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Mahalia Jackson

Marian Anderson

Musicians

Thelonious Monk

James R. Johnson

Clyde McPhatter

Music Legends

Dinah Washington

Louis Armstrong

Jelly Roll Morton

Coleman Hawkins

Commemorations of the 1969 moon landing

Click image to enlarge.

Worldwide philately, 1969

Click image to enlarge.

United States philately, 1969

Click image to enlarge.

“Fastest Time and Best Stock”

Entrepreneurs from the Tucson area, such as Pinchney Tully, Estevan Ochoa, Pedro Aguirre, Mariano Samaniego, J.D. Kinnear, and William “Curly” Neal, provided much- needed services between short distances.

Tuffy Peach delivered mail on horseback three times a week between Camp Verde and Payson from 1910-1914. His route was 52 miles long, lasted 11 hours, and required one change of horse. When interviewed by the Arizona Philatelist in 1968, he described his work:

“I often had mail piled so high in front of me that I could hardly see where my horse was treading… “But, gosh, those horses knew the mail route better than the dispatch riders. We couldn’t get lost if we tried. Our horses wouldn’t let us.”

Clinton “Tuffy” Peach, Arizona Philatelist article, January 1968. Tuffy Peach delivered mail on horseback to and from Camp Verde, Arizona and Payson, Arizona from 1910-1914.

Pedro Aguirre unused cover.

Advertisement for Walker and Kinnear’s stage company.

Photograph of stage outside Hotel Nobles.

“For All Points Along the Colorado River”

Steamers left San Francisco for the Gulf of California every 20 days and then traveled up the Colorado River. The port at Yuma was a major artery in the delivery of supplies to Arizona.

The steamboats transported not only mail and goods, but also people. In 1874 Martha Summerhayes traveled on the steamboat Gila from Fort Yuma to Fort Mohave. In her book Vanished Arizona, she describes the conditions:

The staterooms “were always stuffy and noisy, and in the summer they were so suffocatingly hot.” In the dining room, “the metal handles of the knives were uncomfortably warm to the touch; and even the wooden arms of the chairs felt as if they were slowly igniting… A siesta was out of the question, as the staterooms were insufferable; and so we dragged out the weary days.”

Postcard postmarked 1910 depicting the Yuma landing on the Colorado River

Unused and undated postcard depicting the Yuma landing on the Colorado River

Colorado Steam Navigation Company advertisement

Mules, Wagons, and Well-Worn Routes

Mail, including letters, supplies, and goods, was often freighted in by steamship from San Francisco to the port of Yuma. From there, items either continued up river or were loaded onto wagons, coaches, and pack animals and taken out to towns and camps.

The stage lines and buckboard lines that carried mail and supplies also transported passengers on a regular basis between towns, sometimes requiring at least one overnight stay. These vehicles were extraordinarily uncomfortable, however. After making the much longer overland (cross-country) trip on stagecoach, journalist Waterman L. Ormsby famously said, “I NOW KNOW WHAT HELL IS LIKE. I’VE JUST HAD 24 DAYS OF IT.”

Cleator, Arizona, undated photograph

“Prospector on the Desert” unused postcard

Wilcox, Arizona, 1915, undated photograph

Life in the Old West

Imagine leaving everything and everyone you know and moving across the country to live in the wilderness, hoping to make your fortune in gold, silver, or copper. Living 1000 miles or more away from home, the only way to talk to your family and friends, and the only way to know what was happening outside your immediate vicinity, was through letters and newspapers: the mail.

Postcard depicting man outside a cabin in Prescott

Promotional postcard from Globe depicting two men and a child at water pump

Image of teacher and students at Mayer school

Postcard depicting a prospector sifting with a rocker box

Letters from Home

“Another week gone and no newsman yet. These months—years perhaps—will to a certain extent be a blank to us. We know nothing of what is going on the states, nothing of the political maneuvers. President’s messages, doings of Congress, elections of senators and assemblymen and the thousand and one maneuvers of the day, riots, mobs, fires, rail-road accidents—in fact I shall be a kind of Rip van Winkle & it will require the first ten years after returning to learn what has taken place while away.”

–Letter from A.W. Genung in Curtissville, San Joaquin District to “Woodward,” Dec 16, 1849, from James W. Milgram’s The Western Mails.

Postcard postmarked Oatman, 1911

Cover postmarked Bisbee, Arizona, 1900

Cover postmarked Florence, Arizona, 1876

Postcard picturing Jerome, Arizona

Help using PayPal

Once you hit the blue button at the bottom of the form, you will be taken to PayPal to complete your gift. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE NOR USE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT. Please click on the “Donate with debit or credit card” button near the bottom of the next screen. (See image to right and click on it for an enlargement.)

You should also receive a confirmation email from us. If you do not receive an acknowledgement within ten business days, please call us at 520-623-6652.

Thank you so much for your generosity!

Scroll to Top