First Open Air Post Office

In the early 1900s, St. Petersburg, Florida Postmaster Roy Hanna envisioned a new kind of post office - one that was open on all sides which would allow customers to access their post office boxes at any hour.

His vision became reality in 1917, when St. Petersburg opened the nation's first outdoor post office.

"The design of the post office was inspired by one of the icons of the early Italian Renaissance in Florence, the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1424) by Filipp Brunellschi and contains many ornaments of terra cotta based on Renaissance designs," according to a write-up that appears on the Waymarking.com website.

In 1969, the south wall and south one-third of the east wall were enclosed to allow for indoor service counters, air conditioning, heating and additional postal boxes.

In 1975, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

To see more Post Offices on post cards, click here.