Saturday, October 22, 2005

Post Office motto

Contrary to popular belief, the United States Postal Service's motto is not "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

The well-known slogan actually appears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done.

The inscription was supplied by William Mitchell Kendall of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the architects who designed the New York General Post Office on which it appears. Located at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street, it was built in 1913.

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posted by Don Schilling at 12:01 PM