Taku Glacier, ALASKA - 1932 - RPO Cancellation For Sale
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Taku Glacier, ALASKA - 1932 - RPO Cancellation:
$9.00
Taku Glacier, ALASKA - 1932 - RPO Cancellation: Taku Glacier is a tidewater glacier located in Taku Inlet in the U.S. state of Alaska, just southeast of the city of Juneau. Recognized as the deepest and thickest alpine temperate glacier known in the world, the Taku Glacier is measured at 4,845 feet (1,477 m) thick. It is about 58 kilometres (36 mi) long, and is largely within the Tongass National Forest. The glacier was originally named Schultze Glacier in 1883 and the Foster Glacier in 1890, but Taku, the name the local Tlingit natives had for the glacier, eventually stuck. It is nestled in the Coast Mountains and originates in the Juneau Icefield. It is the largest glacier in the icefield and one of the southernmost tidewater glaciers of the northern hemisphere. The glacier, which converges with the Taku River at Taku Inlet, has a history of advancing until it blocks the river, creating a lake, followed by a dramatic break of the ice dam. The most recent of these advances occurred in 1750. Due to the positive mass balance and the fact that it was no longer losing mass to icebergs, Taku Glacier has become insensitive to the warming that has impacted all other glaciers of the icefield. This has driven its advance. Also of interest in this card is the RPO POSTAL CANCELLATION on the reverse. In the United States a railway post office, commonly abbreviated as RPO, was a railroad car that was normally operated in passenger service as a means to sort mail en route, in order to speed delivery. The RPO was staffed by highly trained Railway Mail Service postal clerks and was off-limits to the passengers on the train. The Railway post office was introduced in the United States on July 28, 1862. Most RPO cars had a mail slot on the side of the car, so that mail could actually be deposited in the car, much like using the corner mail box, while the train was stopped at a station. Those desiring the fastest delivery would bring their letters to the train station for dispatch on the RPO, knowing that overnight delivery would be virtually assured. The mail handled in this manner received a cancellation just as if it had been mailed at a local post office, with the cancel giving the train number, endpoint cities of the RPO route, the date, and RMS Railway Mail Service or PTS Postal Transportation Service between the killer bars. Collecting such cancellations is a pastime of many philatelists and postal history researchers. The Railway Mail Service organization within the Post Office Department existed between 1864 and September 30, 1948. It was renamed the Postal Transportation Service on October 1, 1948, and existed until 1960. After 1960, the management of railway post office routes as well as Highway Post Office routes, Air Mail Facility, Terminal Railway Post Office, and Transfer Office, were shifted to the Bureau of Transportation. This White Border Era postcard, mailed in 1932, is in good condition. No. C138.
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