Has the eagle always been the symbol of the U.S. Postal Service?
The first symbol of America’s postal service was Mercury, the Roman god of commerce and travel. This symbol was first used by Postmaster General Hazard in 1782. From 1837 to 1970, the postal service was represented by a running pony symbol. The symbol did not, as some believed, represent the Pony Express service, which did not begin until April 1860 and which was not part of the U.S. Postal Service, but a privately-run organization. On August 12, 1970, the Post Office Department was reorganized under President Nixon’s tenure to the Postal Service. The running pony was replaced by the bald eagle, which, though re-designed in the 1990s, remains the postal service’s symbol.
